‘Y&R’s New Head Writers Promise ‘Sexy’ Next Chapter and Cast Surprises

A new chapter at The Young and the Restless begins Wednesday, November 11, when the first episodes from the co-head-writing team of Jamey Giddens and Dan O’Connor begin airing.  

The two bring a wealth of daytime experience to the 53-year-old soap, along with a deep appreciation for its history and the legacy of its co-creator, William J. Bell. 

Giddens was writing for Beyond the Gates when he joined Y&R and previously worked on Days of our Lives and its streaming spin-off, Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem. O’Connor wrote for One Life to Live until the show’s cancellation, then joined General Hospital in 2013, where he eventually became co-head writer. He most recently wrote for Days.  

Now, the two are ready to put their own stamp on Genoa City while honoring what has made Y&R a daytime institution.  

Here, Giddens and O’Connor speak exclusively to TV Insider about their vision for the show, what viewers can expect, and the stories they’re excited to tell.   

What does it mean to both of you to be co-head writers of The Young and the Restless? 

Jamey Giddens: I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t watching this show. My grandparents were obsessed with Victor [Newman, Eric Braeden] and Nikki [Newman, Melody Thomas Scott], Jack [Abbott, Peter Bergman] and Ashley [Abbott, Eileen Davidson], and so to be penning their next chapter is just a lifelong dream come true. 

Dan O’Connor: Y&R has been part of my life for a very long time, too. My babysitter growing up would turn on the TV at 12:30 every afternoon, and we would watch it, and I’ve been a loyal viewer for the last couple of years as well. It’s very exciting to be able to make our mark on such an important show with an important legacy. 

Howard Wise / jpistudios.com

What was your first order of business? 

Giddens: Well, we had to really hit the ground running. Josh Griffith [former head writer] left us with some amazing material, so we started reading copious amounts of outlines and scripts to get caught up. We were like, “Ooh, wouldn’t it be great if Adam [Newman, Mark Grossman] delivered Sally’s [Spectra, Courtney Hope] baby?” And surprise! Of course, Josh had already done that. So, we were like, “Okay, we have to take our pitches that got us the job, put them to the side and roll up our sleeves and come up with new stuff.” A lot of that, just by the nature of how daytime moves so fast, had already happened. 

O’Connor: There’s a reason why people say, “Miss a day, miss a lot.” I think there was about three months’ worth of material that we read to catch up. And yes, it altered some of our plans that we thought of coming in, but it also inspired us to think of some pretty exciting new stuff. 

Giddens: Sometimes when new regimes come in, it’s such a jarring change. We wanted to lean into some of the stories that we really gravitated to and write the next chapters. We wanted to bring a community feel to the show and cross some characters that might not have been playing together, and make it feel like a town, get these characters out and about. 

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O’Connor: Make Genoa City feel like a real place. I think one of the things that we’re very fortunate about was that the timing is around the holidays, and that it provided us a lot of opportunities to bring the entire cast together and just show Genoa City as a whole.  

Giddens: I have come up with this cheesy mantra in my head, “Come home to Genoa City for the holidays.” We had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and we just wrote Valentine’s Day. 

How would you describe your overall vision for Genoa City, and what do you want viewers to experience when they tune in? 

O’Connor: I think it comes down to one word, which is community. We want to see the entire town come together, be on united fronts, and sometimes in conflict with each other. We’re going to be mixing it up and have everybody interact with each other a little bit more. 

Giddens: We want the audience to feel like they can pull up a chair at Crimson Lights or get dolled up and go to the Athletic Club or Society and then maybe run over to Jabot and star in their own photo shoot. We want people to be able to just escape for one hour a day into this fantastical world that you also can relate to. We want to bring it back to heightened escapism and a mixture of grounded reality.  

Howard Wise/jpistudios.com

You met with the cast when you came on board. What did you learn from those conversations? 

O’Connor: Meeting everybody in the cast is just a wonderful experience, and one of the things we like to ask all of them is, “What’s something you have not been able to do in however many years you’ve been here?” A lot of times, it offers inspiration for not only storylines, or pairing people with different performers and different scenes, but it’s just a great way to open up a dialogue with the cast. We are stewards of writing stories for them at the moment, but they have been living and breathing with these characters for a very long time. And their insight is invaluable as we develop the next chapter of Genoa City. 

Giddens: Meeting with Mr. Braeden and Ms. Scott and Mr. Bergman, when you think of The Young and the Restless day in and day out, those are the tent poles. And just talking to them and getting their insight and who they want to play with more and what they love about their characters and how they see them tick, it just was so invaluable to help us start crafting these next chapters and what it’s going to look like for the Newmans and the Abbotts and the Winters and Mariah [Copeland, Camryn Grimes] and Tessa [Porter, Cait Fairbanks] and all of these people as we set this new course. 

William J. Bell is a legend in this business. What does it mean to you to be writing the show he co-created? 

O’Connor: I have to pinch myself quite regularly. We’re in his office right now, and you can feel his presence here every time you walk into the room. 

Giddens: Not only did I grow up watching his shows, I grew up studying his interviews. And he talked about how soap opera was the superior medium. So many people think of it as a stepping stone to primetime, but you never get to spend this much time with a character as you do in this genre. And that’s always just stuck with me. It’s just such a tremendous honor. We’ve met with [his children] Brad [Bell, executive producer and head writer of The Bold and the Beautiful] and Lauralee Bell [Christine, Y&R], and their support has just been tremendous. We want to really pay homage to what Mr. Bell did with a contemporary feel for this modern era that we live in and to keep these stories fresh and sexy and young and restless for many generations to come.  

Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images

For viewers who may have drifted away from Y&R, why should they come back now? 

Giddens: You have two dyed-in-the-wool soap opera aficionados and fans in Dan and me. People who respect this show, who respect what it is at its best, who aren’t afraid to pitch contemporary stories and who get that really people want to be entertained. They want some romance. They want jeopardy. They want thrills. They want excitement, but they really want to love these characters, and that’s what we strive to bring every day. With every single outline, every single thrust, every single script, we’re trying to make it better than the last one. We have an amazing team of writers. It takes a village to raise a soap opera, and we’ve got a good village.  

O’Connor: We definitely have the best in the business, not just with wardrobe, but also hair and makeup. It’s just an embarrassment of riches. And the best part of this genre is that it’s the most collaborative art form, and we have amazing collaborators. We’re big believers in, “I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.” So, a little bit of suspense and anticipation is what we’re really hoping for. We want them parked in those seats and paying attention. 

Come back tomorrow for an exclusive storyline preview! 

The Young and the Restless, Weekdays, CBS, Check Local Listings