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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?

Has it really been 45 years since General Hospital started broadcasting? Four decades + five years of medical machinations, legendary love stories, action and intrigue. Yes, yes, it's true, on April 1, ABC's General Hospital will celebrate 45 years on the air. Current executive producer, Jill Farren Phelps, will cut the cake and members of the cast will blow out the candles, but we're the ones that probably should be smiling. Memories of the great years gone by are inevitable with any show that's run as long as GH. But there's something special about this ABC soap.

Cynopsis reports that now that the writers' strike is over -- hallelujah! -- Lifetime Television will soon begin production on the second season of Army Wives with episodes scheduled to air in early summer. This is great news for fans of the Lifetime original drama series that was a ratings juggernaut when it premiered last summer. In fact, Army Wives was the most successful series in Lifetime's 23-year history! During its 13-episode run, Army Wives was the highest rated drama on cable among women, establishing new Lifetime marks for an original scripted series. The soapy-drama was scheduled to return in April, but then the writers struck and the show has been in hibernation -- I mean, hiatus -- ever since.

For whatever reason, the name Chuck has turned out to be very popular this year. On TV, Pushing Daisies has a major character named Chuck and, of course, there's the new series Chuck. in the theaters, Chuck and Larry were happily married and Dane Cook was a Chuck with extraordinary luck. All these Chuck's got me thinking (not to mention craving a hamburger) some of the greatest people on television have been named Chuck. Here are a few.

Chuck Cunningham (Happy Days)
When the Cunningham family first made their appearance, Chuck was clearly the funniest part of the family. Unfortunately as the show progressed, it became clear that there simply wasn't enough room for Chuck in the house or on the series. Chuck Cunningham lives on, however, as the most famous forgotten character of all time.

For the most part, television is filled with wacky whimsical characters designed to help us forget about the darkness that invades our daily lives. However once in awhile a character comes along who dares to make us face our own evil within. What follows are my personal favorites.

Dexter Morgan (Dexter)
Just because Dexter only preys on bad people doesn't excuse the fact that he has a compulsion to kill people in very sadistic ways. Dexter may be the perfect psycho because he is completely self-aware. He knows full well that what he is doing is unacceptable but also firmly believes that he can do nothing to change who he is.

Starting today, the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives will be available on iTunes for the usual $1.99 per episode. Fans can also get episodes a bit cheaper by purchasing twenty episodes for $9.99.

According to Variety, placing Days on iTunes is most likely a move to get more people to watch the series, which has lost some viewers over the last year or so. Frankly, I don't see why more soap operas aren't made available this way, or, even better, made available for free online. Soaps more or less require a person to be tuned in day in and day out, and fans, one assumes, would love to be able to go back and catch up on whatever they might have missed.

This, however, leads to another question, which is "how old are the people watching Days, and how many of those people are going to use iTunes for anything?" Something tells me an iTunes promotional push isn't going to be much help.

I have often said that all television falls into two categories, good and bad. However, I have recently discovered that television can also be categorized as classic and non-classic. But there's a catch.

When I was growing up, there wasn't a lot of good TV due to the fact that there were only three networks (four if you count PBS, which I certainly didn't). Consequently, local affiliates had no choice but to fill their daytime schedules with reruns of popular sitcoms like The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island and The Monkees. These shows and shows like them have become classics almost by default. Bottom line: when an entire generation can sing the theme song of a show, it's a classic.

The bitchy, back-stabbing, coke-snorting characters on BBC's Footballers' Wives are coming to America. ABC has given the greenlight to the pilot for the Americanized version of the British soap drama. Instead of soccer wives, the American version will be NFL wives (natch). The BBC series chronicled how womens' lives changed when they married soccer superstars. Sounds like a companion to Desperate Housewives? The original series ran for five seasons and it is currently airing on BBC America at 10 pm on Sundays.

The Hollywood Reporter is saying that Bryan Singer may direct the pilot. In case that name doesn't ring a bell, he's the director behind the first two X-Men movies and last summer's Superman Returns.

An interesting article over at CNET about Nielsen's planned video on demand ratings which are set to begin in December. As the cable companies continue to offer more options to subscribers, there needs to be some way to measure who is watching what in order to manage the advertising. There is already a system in place that tries to fill the void, but it has its problems. For one, the cable companies have control over the numbers, which obviously presents a huge conflict of interest. Of course, on the other hand, we are talking about Nielsen here, so if you want to toss out the usual arguments about their shortcomings, I'll understand.

It's good to see more interest in the video on demand services as I've been really impressed with the selection Comcast is offering. My favorite features at the moment are the growing list of network shows, FEARnet, and Tube Time, which currently features both Soap and Charlie's Angels.

[ via lost remote ]

Earlier today I was doing some digging around to see if Spenser: For Hire was being released on DVD anytime soon. No luck yet, but it got me thinking. For several years in a row, it seemed like Robert Urich had a new TV show every single fall. Not all of them were successful, but it tells you something about the actor, how much he was liked by fans and the networks, because he was in over a dozen TV series starting in 1973. And that's not counting all the shows he guest-starred in and all the miniseries where he had a role.

Here are the five best Robert Urich TV shows. Urich died in April of 2002:

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. The first soap opera to be offered for download on iTunes is now, well, available for download on iTunes. The daytime drama you can now watch on your computer or iPod? That's right, reruns of Ryan's Hope. Wait, sorry, it's actually Passions, that kooky soap on NBC with all the crazy fantastical plotlines. Episodes will be available for $1.99 the day after they air, so if you like this soap, and I know a lot of people do, you can always catch up if you miss an episode. If any soap fans read this blog, which soap do you think iTunes should offer next? I'm pretty sure both my mom and sister would vote for General Hospital, a long-running series that most people don't know was actually a spin-off of a series called Specific Clinic*.

*I sincerely apologize for that lame joke.

Television and comic book writer Mark Evanier found a very cool animated commercial for Soaky bubblebath featuring Alvin and the Chipmunks, which you can view after the jump. Like a lot of YouTube videos, the soundtrack is not exactly in sync, but whatever, it's still a fun and cool retro commercial. I don't think I've ever heard of Soaky, though. According to Evanier, the voice of the kid in the commercial is Dick Beals, who also appeared in a more famous commercial campaign as the voice of Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Anyway, check out the video, and see how much fun it can be to bathe with woodland creatures at an amusement park in full public view.

Okay, so I wasn't as on top of this news as some people, but I was pleased to find out that Benson, one of my favorite shows to watch with my family growing up, is coming to TV LAND. Benson, as if it needs an introduction, was a spinoff of the popular series Soap and featured Robert Guillaume as a man hired to help out a widowed governor and his young daughter. Like his role on Soap, Benson stood as the only voice of reason among a throng of morons. If TV LAND keeps this up I may just hook my brainstem directly to the TV and live out the rest of my days in blissful nostalgia. Or at least until I get bored.