TVSquad

The Daytime Emmy nominations were announced this morning on The View. My initial reaction is this: there are so many repeat nominees! This list is filled with actors who have won multiple times. Are the Daytime Emmys in a rut? I'm afraid so. This list seems very stale to me, not that many of these performers aren't worthy, but a lot of other worthy actors were completely overlooked. Again. Emmy could use an overhaul, but we'll discuss that another time.

Here are the main nominees -- and some comments -- and you can check out the complete list and a photo gallery of the Daytime Emmy nominees at AOL Television. On Friday, June 20, ABC will broadcast the awards in primetime (8-11 p.m. EST) from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

Outstanding Daytime Drama
General Hospital
Guiding Light
One Life to Live
The Young & the Restless

Here we have the usual suspects. Last year, Y&R and GL shared the prize. My choice would be OLTL this time around -- they had a great year and have been on the uprise. However, Y&R has a lot of actor nominations and that could mean another Emmy for the Bell show. I'd be flabbergasted if either GH or GL win. Both shows have received critical blasts this past year.

In honor of General Hospital's 45th year on the air, AOL came up with a terrific photo trivia quiz which was like a trip down memory lane for longtime fans like me. Seeing all those familiar faces made me realize that through the years there have been some wonderful actors who've called Port Charles home. Here's ten that were memorable and, in my opinion, let an indelible mark on General Hospital.

Amber Tamblyn (1995-2001)
When the producers and writers of GH realized the quality of an actress they had with Amber Tamblyn, they took this 12 year old girl and made her an important part of the Quartermaines, a core family. She appeared as Emily Bowen, the daughter of Page, a woman Monica befriended while they were undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. When Page died, Monica and Alan adopted Emily and she became part of the family, and eventually the conscience of the squabbling, occasionally unscrupulous clan (along with Lila). Amber grew up on GH, going through growth spurts and the emotions of the awkward years. She never failed to convey a reality and truth in her acting. She was a shooting star, passing through GH on the way to bigger things, like Joan of Arcadia.

ER has a way of either killing off beloved characters or sending them off in some other unnecessary, shitty way (remember Jeanie just leaving without saying goodbye to anyone because they were too busy?), but now a top star on the show actually wants them to kill off her character.

Maura Tierney tells AOL's TV Tattler that she wants the show to kill Abby. Tierney isn't coming back full time next season (she'll be on a handful of episodes) and she would like to see Abby killed off instead of walking into the sunset with Luka. But breathe easy, Abby fans. Tierney says that the producers have no plans to kill Abby off. I'm not sure why Tierney would want to have her character killed off. I mean, she's not going to be on the show anymore so why tick off fans?

But let's speculate, shall we? I'll leave it up to you, ER fans: if they do kill off Abby, how should she go? Helicopter chopping her head off? Drinking herself to death? Buffalo stampede? Caught in a black hole?

So, AOL TV did a poll about America's favorite talk show hosts and 1.3 million people made their feelings known. Interesting results. I didn't agree with some of them, like who I like waking up with. Diane Sawyer was the top choice, but I'd go for the second place finisher, Matt Lauer. As for whom to go to bed with -- TV talk show wise, that is -- I can't believe most of the people chose Jay Leno. Is he really that popular? I prefer David Letterman; I'm a sucker for the Top Ten lists.

Recently, TV Squad reported that NBC has added all kinds of classic TV shows to their online outlets. Now comes the announcement that CBS is also bringing a variety of well-loved TV dramas to the web. CBS Interactive is raiding the CBS Library, which is "one of the largest television programming libraries in the entertainment business," to present TV series online across the CBS Audience Network.

Like the NBC fodder, the CBS offering is gangbusters: full-length episodes of classic Star Trek, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O and Melrose Place. CBS plans to add more programs and clips in the coming months, including sports and other kinds of entertainment.

The fine folks over at AOL have put together a fun module where you can rank the Top 12 boys and Top 12 girls. Then after you make your selections you can see how online fans voted. That said, I can't say that I agree with America's pick for the top boy. Of course, I'm not ready to rank the boys honestly because I've never seen a third of them sing.

On the girls side there were some pretty interesting choices, though the top pick doesn't surprise me, if not necessarily for the right reasons. It'll be interesting to see if real voting syncs at all with this page. After all, it is reaching a cross-section of Americans. And I fully expect those results to get even smarter when TV Squad readers wander over there.

For the most part, though, the top vote-getters are the people who got a lot of screen time (save for one), which speaks to that "conspiracy theory" bubbling around. Let's give 'em a final four of Garrett, Luke, Jason and Jason just to show 'em who's who!

The last thing NBC needs right now is a scandal involving its pumped-up American Gladiators. The show premiered with decent ratings two weeks ago and, quite frankly, it's one of the few things NBC has going for it right now.

The network has been testing all twelve of its pumped-up Gladiators for steroids, according to Broadcasting & Cable (via AOL). The mag says all the performers were tested for steroids during their initial physicals and their contracts state that the network can re-test them at any time.

When I watched the season premiere, it didn't occur to me that these guys could be on steroids. I think they look pretty fit but not ridiculously huge or "juiced". That Wolf character... now he sure seems to be on something.

I don't even have a beta invitation to Hulu yet, and already I can tell you that the new online video service from NBC and FOX is a game-changer. Sure, you can't download episodes and burn them to DVD or carry them with you on your iPod. But because the service provides free ad-supported streaming episodes of a bunch of series you actually want to watch, Hulu could make a serious dent on iTunes, Amazon, Joost, and other services that let you watch videos on your PC.

And since Hulu is partnering with online video sites like AOL and MSN, you can already watch quite a bit of Hulu content today, even without a beta account.

But there's one thing you can't easily do with Hulu -- yet. And that's watch the videos on your TV. But something tells me that's about to change very quickly. When Microsoft launched its new "Internet TV" component for Windows Vista Media Center last month, we were impressed by the technology but a bit disappointed with the content options.

The only videos available were from the MSN Video site. That means it's a bunch of clips from popular programs, user-generated content, and a handful of music videos and concerts. There was a grand total of one TV series with full length streaming episodes available. And while I love me some Arrested Development, I was really hoping for a bit more.

As of this morning, there are 80+ series available on MSN Video. Not all of the shows are from Hulu. There's also some CBS programming, including 18 billion different versions of CSI. There's no way to access these shows from the Windows Media Center interface yet. But I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before these episodes start showing up in MCE.

Update: I just got an email from someone at MSN Video PR, and it appears Hulu content will not be available through Internet TV. I suppose NBC/FOX don't want to cannibalize DVD sales, but this is still pretty disappointing news.

Remember Sony's Minisode Network? Basically Sony is sitting on a huge library of television episodes that don't see much airtime anymore. So the company decided to slice up classic TV shows like Charlie's Angels, and T.J. Hooker and create 5 minute "minisodes."

The interesting thing is that the cliff notes versions of these shows work surprisingly well, if you don't care about things like plot, character development, and dialog.

The minisodes were originally available online at MySpace. Now Sony is making the mini-shows available on Crackle, AOL, and Joost, as well as MySpace. Sony is also bringing more shows out of the vault including Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and The Jeffersons.

[via The New York Times]

ABC and this blog's parent company AOL have reached an agreement to stream ABC programming online. You can already watch a number of TV shows directly from ABC's website, but today's announcement brings us one step closer to being able to watch any program from any network without opening up 20 different web pages.

Although ABC's latest deal is with AOL, the announcement is part of a growing trend. When the networks began streaming TV shows online, the goal was to get people to visit a network website. Now we're seeing more networks teaming up to make content available on sites like MySpace, AOL, and Yahoo!.

NBC and News Corp have announced a name for their YouTube competitor. Hulu doesn't seem to stand for much of anything, but it's "short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself."

Since hulu is positioned as an alternative to YouTube, I suppose they're tied with YouTube for syllables, and have a slight edge in the number of letters. As for content, right now, there's nothing. Hulu is accepting e-mail addresses from anyone interested in signing up for a private beta, which will launch in October.

9:16am: Head on over to AOL for more coverage, photos, and a complete list of all the nominees.

9:15am: I learned two things doing this liveblog. One, the internet can act funny sometimes, and two, I really did need that caffeine.

9:10am: Fans of Lost, Dexter, and Friday Night Lights probably aren't happy this morning.

9:06am: Interesting that Felicity Huffman was nominated, but no one else from Desperate Housewives was, and the show was overlooked.

9:04am: Yes, I'm surprised that Studio 60 didn't at least get some nod, you know?

8:59am: Notes...24 wasn't nominated, though I guess that didn't surprise too many people.

8:48am: Best Comedy: Entourage, The Office, 30 Rock, Two and a Half Men, Ugly Betty

8:47am: Lead Actress, Comedy: America Ferrera, Tina Fey, Felicity Huffman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mary Louise Parker.

8:46am: Lead Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, Steve Carell, Ricky Gervais, Tony Shalhoub, Charlie Sheen

8:45am: Best Reality Show: Amazing Race, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Project Runway, Top Chef.

8:44am: Lead Actress, Drama: Minnie Driver, Edie Falco, Sally Field, Kyra Sedgwick, Mariska Hargitay, Patricia Arquette (six nominees this year? Interesting...)

8:43am: Lead Actor, Drama: James Gandolfini, Denis Leary, James Spader, Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie

8:42am: Best Drama: Heroes, House, Boston Legal (is this a comedy or drama?), Grey's Anatomy, The Sopranos

AOL recently conducted a poll of readers to find out what they thought was the best and worst of television last season. More than 3 million votes were counted! They had to answer 20 questions about their favorite dramas, comedies, reality shows, and Sanjaya hairstyles. I don't necessarily agree with all the results, but that's okay. It's still interesting to see what got people excited last season.

Here are just a few of the results, to see the full list, click here:

Best Drama: House
Best Comedy: Ugly Betty
Best Reality: American Idol
Best Cliffhanger: Lost
Best Villain: Ben, from Lost
Heroes Power You Wish You Had: Time Travel

Since the very first season, The Simpsons have had numerous guest stars. Some have only appeared once, while others have returned again and again. Now, with the eighteenth season recently wrapped up and no end in sight, The Simpsons have had roughly twelve billion guest stars. That number might not be accurate, but I think it's close.

I mention this because our friends at AOL (which owns TV Squad), want to know who your favorite Simpsons guest stars are. If your brain needs a bit of prodding, you can check out this list I made a year ago, but I think my fellow Simpsons fans should be able to come up with a list of actors just fine on their own.

Oh yeah, and AOL also wants to know what your favorite episode of all time is, so be sure to mention that, too.

So, start filling up the comments, folks. The most popular choices will be featured on AOL TV sometime in the near future. We'll keep you posted.

We've been telling you about NBC Universal and News Corp's new YouTube-esque video service for awhile now, and today The Hollywood Reporter has news that the service has added the following channels to its lineup:

• Fuel TV
• Sundance Channel
• Oxygen
• Speed