Posts with tag TheYoungAndTheRestless
Posted Nov 21st 2008 3:07PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Just a couple of weeks ago, all was fine and dandy in
Days of Our Lives-world. Or so it seemed. The big fan shindig at Universal in Hollywood seemed to signal that the status quo was holding that the lone NBC soap still in production would be able to use the 18-month renewal granted by NBC to climb in the ratings and return to past glory. Now comes the shocking news that NBC
has fired Days of Our Lives' two biggest stars, Deidre Hall (Marlena) and Drake Hogestyn (John)
. By the way, Deidre and Drake were at the fanfest. You think they knew the pink slips were on the way? Um, no.
This is all about money, folks, and instead of seeking other ways to trim costs, Executive Producer Ken Corday and company have used a hatchet and chopped off the top salaries. Don't be shocked to hear that more is coming. That could be Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso -- Bo and Hope -- the other iconic romantic couple on the show, right after Marlena and John.
Continue reading Days of Our Lives shake-up: It's all about money
Posted Nov 4th 2008 12:26AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E06) This was an odd episode. Sure, it gave us some closure on the Stella storyline and also gave us a lot of insight on why Robin acts like an alpha male even as she rocks the hell out of a cocktail dress. There were some genuinely funny moments. But, oddly enough, all of it was wrapped in a sitcommy device that just didn't seem to justify the flashback-fest we got. Maybe spending half an episode under a restaurant table just doesn't foster the funny. Or maybe it's because I've seen the gag a hundred times before. Either way, it killed whatever comedic and emotional momentum this episode was trying to build towards yet another reset in Ted's love life.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother: Happily Ever After
Posted Sep 11th 2008 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Daytime, Reality-Free
Executive experience. We've been hearing an awful lot in the media lately about what constitutes executive experience and how important it is when a person gets the chance at an important position. Well, you know what I've learned while watching soap operas? Experience is overrated. Anyone can be a CEO or mayor or run a company, it's easy.
Take Donna on
The Bold and the Beautiful. Until recently, Donna was a model. She used her beautiful body, great features and dazzling smile to show the finest in Forrester Creations. Now, due to her husband's heart attack which resulted in a coma, Donna has taken over the company and appointed herself CEO. It doesn't matter than Donna's never designed a thing or knows how to mass produce, market and distribute a clothing line. Never mind that she couldn't balance her checkbook let alone the bottom line of an international fashion business. Because she had Eric's power of attorney, she took control of the company. Executive leadership was something that she absorbed from Eric, right? Like osmosis or transference. Yeah, right.
Continue reading TV Squad Soap Report: No experience necessary
Posted Aug 13th 2008 3:06PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Casting, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading A Martinez says yes to One Life to Live
Posted Aug 3rd 2008 9:57AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Casting, Reality-Free
The addition of
Hogan Sheffer to the headwriting duties on The Young and the Restless is already making waves. In quick order, David and Sabrina have been killed off to make way for new characters. With new characters comes news of a major former prime time star joining the cast.
TV Guide's Michael Logan reports that Michael Gross will be playing River Baldwin, Michael's father, the one whom he thinks is a low-life, reprobate. A guy who refused to go to Vietnam and left Gloria to raise their son alone.
Best known as Steven Keaton on NBC's Emmy-winning sitcom
Family Ties (1982-89), Michael is sure to bring instant credibility to the role. For one thing, we're going to find out that River is not at all what we've been told he is. In fact, I'm betting that River will be a politically charged character, a man who objected to the war and chose not to fight because he didn't believe it was a just cause.
Watch for Michael Baldwin to discover all kinds of things about himself and the kind of man he is because he shares the genes of a man he's never known.
Michael Gross will begin appearing on August 15.
Posted Jul 10th 2008 2:23PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Daytime, Reality-Free
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!
Continue reading TV Squad Soap Report: Only on a soap...
Posted Jun 26th 2008 10:22AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Emmys, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading TV Squad Soap Report: My Emmy nominations for 2009
Posted Jun 5th 2008 11:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Daytime, Emmys, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading TV Squad Soap Report: You judge the Emmy submissions
Posted Jun 2nd 2008 8:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Industry, Daytime, WGA Strike, Reality-Free
The headwriter carousel is spinning in the world of soaps and two shows have tapped new scribes for their shows. Only they're not new, really, only new to these shows. See, in soaps, everything old is new again when it comes to headwriters. The names are usually the same, just the soaps are different.
First,
All My Children has brought in the super-experienced Charles Pratt, Jr. to take over the script duties. He being June 23, but with the lead time for soaps, his stories won't begin unfolding for about six weeks. Still, ABC daytime prez Brian Frons, was singing Chuck's praises in the announcement, saying, "Charles Pratt, Jr. is a master storyteller. His talents in writing today's biggest primetime hits in conjunction with his vast experience with daytime dramas will undoubtedly elevate
All My Children stories in new and exciting directions."
Pratt does have extensive experience, including
Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Melrose Place, Santa Barbara, and back in 2002,
General Hospital. The guy can spin a yarn and joining
All My Children he'll have lots of great characters to explore. He's also coming in just as two major stars have been added to
the All My Children cast, Guiding Light transplants Beth Ehlers and Ricky Paull Goldin.
Continue reading New (old) headwriters for All My Children & Y&R
Posted May 29th 2008 10:24AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Daytime, Reality-Free
What constitutes a good kid these days? I ask because if I go by the standards put forth by some of the daytime soaps, it's a pretty low bar that's been set. Take, for example, a good kid on
Guiding Light. Daisy, Harley's daughter, was told last week that she would not be allowed to graduate with her high school class. Her mother was dismayed. How could they do that to her daughter? Daisy is such a good kid, Harley said again and again. She'd worked hard to get her grades up and she deserved to graduate with her classmates.
Continue reading TV Squad Soap Report: Let's hear it for good kids!
Posted May 28th 2008 8:24AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Late Night, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading SOAPnet books another season of Night Shift
Posted May 21st 2008 2:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Casting, Reality-Free
Occasionally, you'll see an actor being allowed to be on more than one show at a time, like when Heather Locklear was a regular on
Dynasty and
T.J. Hooker. The catch is that it's usually one actor working two shows for the same network. Finola Hughes, apparently, was trying to do the two-show tango with
General Hospital and
The Young and the Restless,
but ABC put a stop to that before it ever started. In the May 26 issue of
TV Guide, you'll read a report that Finola was cast as Sabrina's hot mom on
Y&R, while continuing to pop up throughout the summer on ABC's
GH as Anna. After the magazine went to the printers, ABC contacted
Finola Hughes -- probably her agent -- and she backed out of
Y&R.
Presumably, ABC leaned on Finola to give up the opportunity to appear on the
number one daytime drama, promising her a heavy storyline in the months ahead. The actress has been an ABC soap star for a long time, having been
front and center on GH and
All My Children in the past. She's also the host on
How Do I Look on the Style Network. The network has never objected to the actress doing Style, so it would seem that the conflict here is about Finola drawing soap fans from the ABC lineup to CBS's.
Continue reading Finola Hughes caught in the middle
Posted Apr 23rd 2008 12:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Ratings, Reality-Free
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.
Continue reading Days of Our Lives tops poll as most searched soap
Posted Apr 18th 2008 5:40PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
It's with a big sigh of relief that I report that Michael Logan at
TV Guide has confirmed that
CBS has booked Guiding Light for one more year. That'll make it 72 years of continuous broadcasting -- radio and television. No program can match
Guiding Light's longevity, and I would hate to see CBS cancel a show with this kind of legacy.
That said,
Guiding Light needs to have a better year going forth than they've had looking back. In fact, since tying with
The Young and the Restless last June as Outstanding Daytime Drama at the Emmys, the show has been going through major transitions.
The new style of filming, shooting on locations in a New Jersey town that's being used as the fictional Springfield, began on February 29, and it hasn't been welcomed by the critics or viewers.
Continue reading CBS renews Guiding Light for another year
Posted Apr 18th 2008 9:21AM by Erin Martell
Filed under: Daytime, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
I always imagined that being a Hilton is like living in a soap opera--wealth, scandal, and the occasional arrest. Apparently real life isn't dramatic enough for one member of the Hilton clan. Paris' mother, Kathy Hilton, will appear on The Young and the Restless as herself. The episode, which will air on May 13, was filmed on Wednesday.
Hilton's fictional self will ruffle some feathers in her Y&R cameo by taking over a magazine photo shoot. I'm not sure where that falls on a soap opera's bad behavior scale, but I'm sure that such workplace antics will at least earn Kathy a few dirty looks. The Hiltons have had plenty of TV exposure over the last month. Paris just did a cameo on a recent episode of My Name is Earl. Barron Hilton, Paris' brother, became a gossip show regular following his DUI arrest.
Continue reading Kathy Hilton to guest star on The Young and the Restless
Next Page >
Twilight Vs. Roswell: Are aliens more romantic than vampires? - VIDEO
Why do series finales have to be so final?
Spoilers Anonymous
