TVSquad

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.

To longtime soap fans like me, A Martinez will always be best known as Cruz Castillo on Santa Barbara. Paired with Marcy Walker as Eden Capwell, they were nearly as big a soap supercouple as GH's Luke and Laura (although they were truly number one back then and still are in many ways).

It's great to have A back on daytime, and One Life to Live is the best show for him. The writing and directing for OLTL has been top-notch -- they won the Emmys this year for both. I'm anticipating Ray Montez, his new character, to make an immediate impact when he shows up on August 28.

I thought A was amazing on Santa Barbara, and he won a well-deserved Outstanding Actor Emmy. I'm really looking forward to seeing how One Life uses him, because when last seen on General Hospital, he was really wasted. This guy is a dynamic actor and needs a character and storyline to dig his teeth into.