theboldandthebeautiful

It's not unusual anymore when a primetime star suddenly makes the jump into daytime. Recently, Michael Gross has signed on to The Young and the Restless. Patrick Duffy is a semi-regular on The Bold and the Beautiful, Bruce Weitz is a Mafioso kingpin on General Hospital, and if you tuned in yesterday you got to see John James terrorize half a dozen Oakdale residents on As the World Turns as a deranged doctor. If you're keeping score, they were previously the stars from Family Ties, Dallas, Hill Street Blues and Dynasty, respectively. So, really, a primetimer coming to daytime is SOP (standard operating procedure) these days.

However, when a daytimer goes to primetime and then returns to daytime, that can be interesting. Sarah Brown's return to GH qualifies and so does this one: A Martinez is joining One Life to Live. For the last decade, A's been a regular guest or regular on Viva Laughlin, Raines, CSI, Huff, JAG and Profiler. All good roles, but nothing to match his daytime experience.

Soap operas are a funny form of television fiction. They have rules all its own, they can tell all kinds of stories and do them in the most unusual ways. Here's a few things I've noticed lately, things that seem to only be possible, on a soap.

Only on a soap...can a medical clinic be conceived, built and stocked in less than a month.
It's true. It happened in Port Charles. On General Hospital, soon after Emily died -- and Nikolas stopped seeing visions of her thanks to a brain tumor -- he decided to dedicate a health clinic in her memory. Since Nikolas is a royalty, some kind of prince, cost was no object. He never met with an architect or designer, never spoke to contractors, never searched for a location and dealt with permits. He did have a fight with the mayor for a couple of shows about opening the clinic after it was already completed. If only all construction projects could be done so easily. Jeff Lewis on Bravo's Flipping Out doesn't even work that fast!
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It was big news in the world of daytime when Joseph Mascolo exited Days of Our Lives a few months ago. After all, Mascolo's Stefano Dimera was hailed as the number one villain of all time in daytime by Soap Opera Digest.

His return to Days was supposed to be long-term, but it didn't work out that way. In a surprising, some would say typical, soap way, the phoenix will rise again. Stefano Dimera, in the form of Joseph Mascolo, is coming back to Days of Our Lives. His reign of terror will commence once more -- in early August. Meanwhile, the other big time evil-doer on the show, Victor Kiriakis, will become more moderate and good by comparison.

Evil on the soaps is, well, a necessary evil. You can't have characters who are happy and blissful all the time. You need the selfish, the greedy, the vengeful, all those evil types to keep the stories interesting.

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Did you enjoy the Daytime Emmy Awards last week? Were you happy to see grand soap stars like Anthony Geary and Jeanne Cooper honored? I have no complaints with the winners -- and as I mentioned in previous posts, I had predicted some of them correctly. But I do have qualms about so many actors and actresses who weren't even nominated.

A lot of great performances weren't recognized. Therefore, I've decided to recognize a few actors and actresses who should be on the ballot in 2009! That's right, this is a pre-emptive list of six who should be included in next year's Daytime Emmy nominations.

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Evil clones, friendly vampires, secret islands and much, much more.

When something's overly dramatic, we call it a soap opera.

And no wonder -- only in daytime serials do we find such plot twists as people we thought were dead being held captive on islands (that's actually happened more than once), characters coming back from heaven, comatose patients astrally projecting themselves.

We're not making any of these up -- these are our favorite crazy, wacko soap opera story lines.

SOAPnet has landed a big star to anchor the second season of General Hospital: Night Shift. As TV Squad mentioned previously, Antonio Sabato, Jr., who was rumored to be returning as Jagger Cates, has signed on the dotted line. When Night Shift returns to SOAPnet on Tuesday, July 22, the character of Jagger, played by Antonio Sabato, Jr. will be front and center.

Jagger Cates has not been involved in General Hospital since 1995, so presumably he's older and wiser. But since Antonio is still playing the role, he's going to definitely be as gorgeous as ever. Interestingly, if Antonio is booked, what's the likelihood that Steve Burton will be there as Jason?.

The Daytime Emmys are coming. The nominations have been announced and ABC plans to broadcast the award presentation on June 20 at 8 p.m. (EST) with Sherri Shephard and Cameron Mathison sharing the hosting duties. One of the things that invariably drives soap fans nuts is not being able to see the Emmy submissions; that is, the actual shows that the Blue Ribbon Panels are seeing when they choose the Emmy winner from the set of nominees.

Well, in a landmark move -- one more reason to love the web -- the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has teamed with YouTube to create venue to see most of the nominating clips and judge for yourself. That's what I've done and I've decided to handicap the big Daytime Emmys contests. Tell me what you think, if you judge these clips the way I have.

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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.

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Soap operas thrive on drama and they're not above borrowing from other sources. You could say it happens all the time, because it does. Of course, you can also go by that old Hollywood axiom that there are really only seven stories and they're told over and over again in a variety of new and different ways. Be that as it may, a look at some soap stories going on now will remind you of some other media.

For instance, on All My Children, you might look at Erica Kane's incarceration for insider trading (or whatever she was supposed to have done that was criminal) and think it's reminiscent of the Martha Stewart case. After all, like Martha, Erica is host of a TV show and an entrepreneur of the highest order. But the part of Erica's story that made me giggle was when she was on the run from prison with fellow con Carmen. Being handcuffed together was right out of The 39 Steps (the Hitchcock movie and now on Broadway) and The Defiant Ones, but the two women from different worlds clicking was more like Ugly Betty. Remember, last season when Claire Meade escaped from prison chained to a tough girl named Yoga? Think the AMC writers were taking notes?
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On July 15, 2008, One Life to Live will celebrate its fourth decade on the air. As part of the festivities, a long-time fan favorite is returning to the fold. Actress Andrea Evans is coming back to One Life to Live as Tina Lord Roberts, a role she's played in two stints on the show, 1978 to 1981, and again from 1985 to 1990. Other actresses have played this part at other times, but for die-hard fans, Andrea Evans is the real Tina. She's the one who survived a plunge down the Iguaza Falls in Argentina, the one who romanced Max and Cord, the one who drove Viki crazy. In short, this is a very welcomed return. She'll begin appearing in early June.

For some actors, the soaps are a stepping stone to a career in features. That's how it was for Meg Ryan, who began as Betsy on As the World Turns. For others, like Eva Longoria Parker, the place she made her mark before becoming one of the Desperate Housewives was as Isabella on The Young & the Restless. Allison Janney is another one. She was a lowly -- but brilliant -- maid at the Spaulding mansion on Guiding Light before lighting up the screen as C.J. Cregg on The West Wing and winning four Emmys along the way. Looking at the current crop of actresses at work in daytime today, who are the women, the divas if you will, who are ready for primetime, nay silver screen, success? Here's a list of seven who have caught my eye.

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