soap opera

The soap opera world lost another legend on Friday with the death of James Mitchell, who died in Los Angeles of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease at the age of 89.

'All My Children' fans loved to hate Mitchell's character, Palmer Cortlandt, who had more schemes during his 31-year history in Pine Valley than Erica Kane has had husbands. Mitchell also received seven Daytime Emmy nominations for his work on the long-running soap, although, sadly he never won.

To honor the career of James Mitchell, here is a look back at five of his character's many dastardly deeds ...

Have you seen the new TV commercial for Cheer that features a soap opera-ish plot (a woman wakes from a coma and has to choose between her boyfriend and the hunky doc) and music? That's not just a one shot thing. Procter and Gamble have actually created an online soap called Brighten Bay, and they're holding a contest. The winner gets a walk-on role on CBS' As The World Turns.

Hey, maybe if the contest is a hit they'll reconsider canceling the show. (Note: not likely.)

[via BrandFreak]

The Festivus season is upon us, and the spirits of joy and viewing visit TV Squad, giving us a chance to make our media wishes known. Oh, the wonder of a TV world of my own making. If only the Festivus wishes I make will come true. Yes, Allison, there is a Festivus! And so, my TV wishes:

-- Last year I wished for Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman Palladino to get another shot at TV after the horrible Jezebel James. Well, she's got a deal with HBO. Good for her. Now, for me, let's get her to write and film the finale for Rory and Lorelai and Luke and Star's Hollow that she intended for GG. It's time to do it now while all the principals are still active. The Mary Tyler Moore reunion with Rhoda came two decades too late.

Think of the most popular American daytime soap. Then, multiply that by a factor of 10. That's the ongoing craze known as the BBC's immortal EastEnders. Premiering in 1985, the working-class melodrama remains one of the U.K.'s highest-rated series.

Now, EastEnders is set to kick off its own web spinoff series next year. According to a Beeb press release, the online BBC Vision Multiplatform commissioned EastEnders: E20 to go live in January, 2010.

In addition to taking advantage of TV's online evolution, the web series will help to celebrated the EastEnders 25th anniversary.

Now, the question is if anyone in Hollywood can catch on to moves like these and adapt more successful U.S. shows into big name web series. Shows like 24 tried brief web dalliances, but nothing this ambitious has yet to take flight from American networks.

Actually, I'm not sure he even had time to pack up his stuff at CBS and leave the building, but Eric Braeden is returning to The Young and the Restless.

Allison told you that contract negotiations between Braeden and Sony had come to a standstill. Braeden has been on the show for 30 years and knew that he had to take a pay cut (like everyone in the industry is doing these days), but they couldn't come to terms on what that pay should be, and Braeden felt that Sony had reneged on what they had promised. But it's all in the past now. Braeden will stay with the show.

Before Dallas and Dynasty and Falcon Crest and Knots Landings captured the imaginations of American viewers, there was a British soap import that was even more compelling.

From 1971-75, PBS aired the British upper crust soap Upstairs Downstairs. And now Upstairs Downstairs is going to be remade. It'll be filmed and shown in England first before coming to America in 2011.

What made Upstairs Downstairs classic television – it won Emmys, BAFTAs and Golden Globes – was the way it depicted of the British class system. Upstairs you had the rich, privileged Bellamy family. Downstairs there were the servants who worked for them. The lives of all these characters intertwined in a well-written, brilliantly acted drama series.

In the biggest casting shocker since Elizabeth Taylor appeared on General Hospital as Helena Cassadine, movie star James Franco is joining General Hospital for a couple of months as a mystery man who comes to Port Charles. Although not confirmed by the show, it's likely that Franco will be playing Vlad Cassadine, another member of that evil family that vexes the citizens of Port Chuck. His first airdate is November 20.

Why would Franco, who's busy with movies and has appeared in Spider-Man, The Pineapple Express, Milk and other hits, take a role on a daytime soap? There's no word from the actor yet, but it could be that they threw a lot of money at him. There's also the possibility that he's a soap opera fan and thought it would be a lark. Ummm, I'm thinking it's more likely the former.

(S01E04) Lies, lies and damn lies. There are plenty of them on Glee in between the musical numbers, but in a truly fine episode like this one, at least one major truth emerges and that's what you take away from the show. Still, it's that darn song I'm humming and one more reason Glee keeps me coming back.

By the way, before we go on, how great is it that Glee has been renewed for a full season? Way to go, Fox! Yes, maybe it was a given that this show would be given a chance, but there are no sure things, and I think the network deserves a thumbs up when they take a chance. Anyway, more on tonight's show and all the plot developments after the jump.

Let's get the bad out of the way right at the top: no clips or retrospective?

It would have been nice to have a montage of past Guiding Light characters. After all, the show has been on TV since 1952, so why not take a little trip down video memory lane? It was fun to see all of the openings they've used over the decades at the start of the show (in reverse order), but it would have been good to see something at the end of the show to bookend it instead of a "The End" and then a commercial and the Tele-Next logo. Seemed kinda odd.

However, that didn't ruin the episode itself, which turned out to be everything that GL fans could have wanted and more.

No, Morley Safer didn't go behind the scenes of the CBS soap with a hidden camera to find some scandal or catch someone doing something illegal, he talked to the cast and crew because the show is ending tomorrow after 57 years on the network.

There are interviews with the producers and writers of the show as well as a few cast members, along with scenes from the final episodes.

A lot of Guiding Light fans are entranced by Otalia. That's not a butter substitute, it's the "Brangelina-ish" name that fans have given to Olivia and Natalia, the lesbian couple played by Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia. Fans won't be able to see that couple anymore, since Guiding Light will air its last episode ever on September 18. But the actresses have decided to keep the storyline alive on the web.

Though as I said above, kind of.

Imagine if, at the end of the 10-year run of Friends, Rachel ended up marrying Paul Rudd's character.

Doesn't make much sense, does it? But that's pretty much what's happening these days on Guiding Light, as it heads toward its last episode ever next month. The long romance of Reva Shayne and Josh Lewis - something that has been simmering off and on for over 25 years - has pretty much been over for a while.

But I thought that, since the show was ending, they'd start wrapping up classic storylines and actually get Reva and Josh together forever, to please fans of the show. It doesn't look like that's going to happen.

In fact, the opposite seems to be in the minds of the writers.

Every time I hear the name of Jimmy Fallon's "late night show soap opera" 7th Floor West, I think of Central Park West, the short-lived 90s soap from Darren Star that aired on CBS. I really liked that show, even if everyone else didn't. But this soap follows the adventures of Fallon and his staff their NBC studio. Here's the first episode, and you can watch the others (episode 7 debuts on July 13) at the 7th Floor West site.

Fallon is doing some clever regular bits on his show. Except "Lick it for Ten."

Since there's news today that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton will make a big-screen version of the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, I think it's appropriate that the TV show premiered on this day in 1966. It ran for around 25,000 episodes. It's weird to think about what this show was, a soap opera that happened to include vampires, werewolves, creepy mansions, and thunderstorms. I was mesmerized by this show as a kid. The theme is still haunting, and forget Barnabas Collins. I was freaked out by Quentin just sitting in a chair, staring ahead into the air. And those sideburns!

Here's the color opening from the late 60s/early 70s.

Hey Melrose Place fans: remember on the original show when Sydney was run over by a car and killed? Well, forget about all that. She's alive!

Laura Leighton will reprise her role as Sydney on the new relaunch of the show that The CW is doing. When we last saw Sydney, she was run over by Samantha and her dad on the day of her wedding. No, I don't remember that at all because I didn't watch Melrose Place, but I did read about it on Wikipedia. Seems like Sydney was kinda crazy, eh? In the new version, she's going to be the landlord. No word on whether she will be a crazy landlord.

Wow, reading about what happened on that show makes me feel like I missed something good. I was a Knot's Landing guy. I did see the Melrose Place episode where Marcia Cross went nutty and blew up the entire condo complex. That was pretty wild.