Someone at Sony TV or CBS has evidently ponied up for the soap, “The Young and the Restless.”

In the last few weeks, the show has ponied up for a bunch of well known actors to join the cast.

They had to do it. Ratings as dismal, and the show seems like it’s on a loop. As well as the actors, the show also added a strong but disliked producer, Jill Farren Phelps, to their team. Phelps has worked at every soap, killing off fan favorite characters like Sweeney Todd in the barbershop.

More meat pies!

Added to “YR” are Matt Cohen from “General Hospital,” Roger Howarth from that show and “One Life to Live,” Tamara Braun from “Days of our Lives,” and Lucas Adams from “Days,” too. “Y&R” also swapped actors with “Days,” sending one there and bringing one over.

“GH” is also reviving a character who died on screen and had a big funeral 8 years ago. (I guess he’s feeling better!)

In the most recent ratings, only “General Hospital” seems to be turning the ship around. “Y&R” fell under 3 million viewers right before Labor Day.

This Sunday at 9pm, HBO goes back to the Delaware Valley in blue collar Pennsylvania.

This is where their enormous hit, “Mare of Easttown,” took place.

Now the same writer, Brad Ingelsby, returns with another seven part drama series that blew everyone away at last night’s premiere.

“Task” stars Mark Ruffalo, Tom Pelphrey (so great in “Ozark”), Emilia Jones from “CODA,” Martha Plimpton and a large cast of less well known but just as talented actors.

Ruffalo plays a semi-retired FBI agent tasked with finding Pelphrey, who’s leading a mini gang of violent robbers. It sounds simple but it’s not. The writing is on the same A level as “Mare of Easttown,” so is the directing. They’re working with a cast of actors who are sure to be in Best Ensemble races in every awards show.

HBO knows they have the hit of the fall. The premiere was held at the architecturally eccentric Perelman Culture Center on the World Trade Center campus. This is one weird building whose entrance is only up flights of steep stairs. The theater was designed as if someone saw Jazz at Lincoln Center and said, “How can we do this but make it really uncomfortable?”

In the end, none of this matter. Aside from the cast, we ran into Kyra Sedgwick, Josh O’Connor, Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup, Josh Hamilton, and Simon Jones from “The Gilded Age,” among others.

In future episodes we’re going to see Mickey Sumner and Raphael Sbarge, among others. But for right now, “Task” is the must see Sunday 9pm HBO show of the season. What a treat!

PS I did finally meet Ingelsby, whose “Mare of Easttown” I think remains one of the great short TV series. He’s mild mannered and pleasant, nothing like the gritty, often violent characters he cooks up. How does he do it, I asked? “I come from there,” he told me. He’s obviously a great observer.

Inglesby told me — EXCLUSIVE — that a “Mare” sequel is a real possibility! “Imagine what it would be like to see those people five years later.” Also, “Task” is looking at a season 2 at some point.

I’ve not looked ahead at the whole season, but I will after after Episode 1 airs this Sunday. I think we will all want to know what happens next.

More after the show airs Sunday night.

CBS wanted somehow to keep “Blue Bloods” but get rid of Tom Selleck, who was paid a king’s ransom.

So tomorrow night comes “Boston Blue,” in which Donnie Wahlberg — who’s from Boston but play Danny Reagan from Brooklyn, is the star.

No more Selleck or that whole family sitting around the dining room table for 14 years.

Now Danny/Donnie has mysteriously left his close knit family in New York for Boston. Luckily, he has a Boston accent already.

From the promos, people are still sitting around dining tables, so that will seem familiar. But other than a cameo in episode 1 from Bridget Moynahan, we probably won’t be seeing Danny’s family. And conversely, he’s not going to visit them even though there’s a super fast Acela train.

Well, when Lou Grant left Minneapolis for Los Angeles, we never saw Mary, Ted, or Murray. They completely disappeared. Spin-offs are tricky because you can’t keep going back to the original show unless everyone’s on board. On “Frasier,” we did see the “Cheers” gang in the first couple of seasons, but once it took off it was goodbye. And when Frasier moved back to Boston for the terrible sequel, he pretended like he knew no one there.

Tom Selleck was squawking when “Blue Bloods” was cancelled because he knew what CBS was up to. He just didn’t express it very well. But he was right. “Boston Blue” won’t make much sense — what happened to Danny’s long time partner and love interest, Maria (Marisa Ramirez)? Didn’t she wait a decade to get some action? Now, nothing!

Well, that’s how the cookie crumbles in TVLand.