Saturday 19 December 2009

TUCKER SWITCH

[13.00 - French Time] It's really a surprise for soap opera aficionafos (count your humble servant among them) but the mysterious Tucker McCall, new to Genoa City, is recast just one month after the arrival of talented actor William Russ (Wiseguy, Boy meets world, Boston Legal) in CBS's The Young and The Restless.

It's been a very rocky year for Y&R with mandatory salary cuts due to tough times for the Daytime drama industry. They lost Don Diamont (Brad Carlton) to sister show The Bold and The Beautiful and almost lost Jess Walton (Jill). Worse, the producers were about to bid farewell to Eric Braeden - the legendary Victor Newman himself! - during contract negociations.

William Russ is replaced as Tucker by an actor whose name means aristocracy in the world of soaps: Stephen Nichols, ex-"Patch" Johnson in Days of our lives and ex-Stefan Cassadine in General Hospital.

To attract such a name in Y&R is a very nice coup. According to the Powers that be the change is motivated by new directions for the freshly arrived character but one can wonder if the presence of Stephen Nichols is not also a kind of subliminal message to Eric Braeden.

Don't mess with Mr Mustache...

http://www.soapcentral.com/yr/news/2009/1214-nichols_russ.php
http://www.tvguidemagazine.com/soaps/yr-shocker-william-russ-fired-3549.html

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