soapnet

When something's a success, a follow up is inevitable. Therefore, the news that SoapNet is launching a second season of General Hospital: Night Shift, commencing Tuesday, July 22, is no big surprise. The surprise will be who is going to be involved in the daytime soap spinoff that airs once a week on SoapNet at 11 o'clock. Last season, actors for General Hospital, including Kimberly McCullough, Jason Thompson and Steve Burton did double-duty. And they weren't alone. Some new characters appeared on Night Shift, but the draw was definitely the daytime stars.

SoapNet ordered 13 new episodes of Night Shift and this year the show will be produced in high def. Production begins next month, and unlike last year's edition, the show will be filmed on new stages dedicated solely to Night Shift instead of sharing space with General Hospital.

%Gallery-23794%

You might be surprised to learn that the results of a new poll by AOL.com found that the number one soap opera among web searchers is Day of Our Lives. According to the Nielsen ratings for the soaps, The Young and the Restless is the top daytime drama -- and has been for over a thousand weeks. But I'm not surprised to read these AOL results, which shows Days, General Hospital and All My Children at the top of the list. Y&R is number eight. Also getting a lot of search engine hits is a Spanish telenovela, Fuego en la Sangre, from Mexico.

The success of last summer's General Hospital: Night Shift was the harbinger of things to come. And now they have. SoapNet announced a new 10-episode drama series called MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives.

It makes sense that SoapNet would take another stab at creating its own dramas. Last year's Night Shift, the channel's first attempt at that kind of original programming, proved more popular than the reruns of daytime soaps it had been running at 11 o'clock at night. But the difference between this new offering -- about the ladies in the lives of professional hockey players...hockey and soap? -- is that Night Shift was based on General Hospital and used popular stars from the daytime show for the spin-off. If Steve Burton (Jason), Kimberly McCullough (Robin) and Jason Thompson (Patrick) were not in Nightshift, would SoapNet viewers have tuned in?

Things will never be the same in Llanview. Rapper Snoop Dogg will be guesting on One Life to Live. Following in the footsteps of other big name music stars Mary J. Blige, Nelly Furtado, Chris Botti, Erykah Badu, Timbaland and Keri Hilson, Snoop is going to sing at the Ultra Violet dance club in episodes airing on ABC (and SoapNet) May 8 and May 9.

That's right, ladies, Lando Calrissian, rogue smuggler and former administrator of Cloud City, will be appearing on General Hospital: Night Shift, a spin-off of General Hospital debuting tomorrow at 11:00 p.m. on SoapNet. The series will air for thirteen weeks.

I guess I should refer to him by his real name, Billy Dee Williams. Apparently the movie star decided, at the ripe old age of 70, to have some fun with his roles. In the past, he had been asked to join the cast of the original General Hospital, but always turned down the offer.

It's called General Hospital: Night Shift, and it is, as the title indicates, a spinoff of General Hospital. The new series, set to premiere on SOAPnet this summer with thirteen episodes, will flesh out the stories from General Hospital and delve deeper into the characters and their lives. Really, it's more of an extension of a series than a bona fide spinoff, but whatever you call it, it's a clever idea. If ever a series had a built-in fanbase, it's this one. The new series will be written by General Hospital head writer Robert Guza, Jr., and executive produced by General Hospital executive producer Jill Farren Phelps.

This is just part of SOAPnet's plan to extend beyond daytime programming: the cable channel will also begin airing episodes of The OC and One Tree Hill starting April 9. SOAPnet recently acquired the rights to all seasons of both series.

[via TV Filter]

Who wants to be a soap star? Well, apparently quite a few people. Casting auditions for the third season of SoapNet's I Wanna Be A Soap Star have been underway in major cities like New York and Chicago, and people from all walks of life have been trying out for the series, the winner of which will be given a thirteen-week contract to appear on the popular ABC soap opera One Life To Live. Despite this being the third season, I hadn't even heard of this show until recently. Of course, I'm also not an avid soap opera watcher, so it's not as if a show like this would have been on my radar, anyway. If any of you have seen it, I'd love to hear your take on it. Is it a worthy "guilty pleasure" or something I should avoid? The new season begins this Thursday at 11 p.m. EST.