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Just when I thought I was sick of Lady Gaga and her billion singles, I've discovered that she has yet released another album. This is now her current single. What do you think of it?


Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

One Life To Live getting canceled?



I know many of you dislike Perez Hilton (as do I), but I heard about the cancellation of Guiding Light on his website on March 31st. It was April 1st when I heard the official announcement from CBS that they were canceling the 72 year old soap Guiding Light. So, I'm beginning to wonder if this is true or if his suspicions garner any type of merit.

Source: Perez Hilton

The Bitch Is Back: Heather Locklear Returns to Melrose Place
by Gina DiNunno
September 22, 2009 09:33 AM ET


The new kids of Melrose Place had better watch their backs, because the original bitch is back.

Heather Locklear will reprise her role as the conniving Amanda Woodward, making her debut performance on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Melrose: Compare the new cast to the old

"Heather's involvement in the show is something we've been working on for some time, as we couldn't imagine creating and producing this show without the iconic character's inclusion," executive producers Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer said in a statement.

Locklear, 47, joined the original Melrose Place towards the end of the first season and stayed on throughout the series' seven-year run.

Other original cast mates signed on for the CW remake include Laura Leighton, Thomas Calabro, Josie Bisset and Daphne Zuniga.

Check out more Fall TV news and photos

Are you excited for Locklear's return?

Source: TVGuide.com

Guiding Light Goodbye: Ellen Wheeler
by Michael Logan September 18, 2009 01:02 PM EST



Some consider her a saint. Some consider her a show killer. Guiding Light executive producer Ellen Wheeler’s much-hyped, much-maligned new production model (launched in February 2008) was supposed to make the struggling serial more relevant, youthful and accessible. Had her raw, radical, slice-of-life vision worked, she would have been heralded as the savior of the industry. Instead, it accelerated viewer fallout and, in time, led to the show’s cancellation. Still, there’s no question that Wheeler busted her balls for GL and is loved and revered by most of the cast. The former actress (she won Emmys for Another World and All My Children) was a veritable dynamo the day I visited the set—breathlessly dashing here, there and everywhere, directing all sequences, supervising the set décor, reworking scripts and troubleshooting like crazy. For a while, it looked like the big outdoor double wedding (Billy & Vanessa, Buzz & Lillian) would be forced inside due to a rainstorm, the kind of logistical nightmare that would make a primetime or movie director crumble. Not Wheeler. She was unfazed and ready with plan B (and probably C and D) and feverishly focused on bringing the two-episode event in on time and on budget, no excuses accepted. Understandably, she was too busy to be interviewed that day, so we talked by phone after the final episode wrapped. Does she have regrets? Would she have done things differently? Don’t bet on it.

Once you knew you were cancelled and there was no hope of moving GL elsewhere, how did you go about the task of wrapping up all that history?
EW:With as much grace and dignity as possible, I hope. This show has such a long, rich history that all we can hope to achieve in these final days is a sense of resolution rather than conclusion. As difficult as it was to be cancelled, we were grateful that we had five months before we went off the air, which allowed us to look at all the characters and relationships and stories and try to find a satisfying way to bring things to a place where we and the audience could let this part of GL go. It’s satisfying but not the end, because Springfield will go on eternally.

How did you decide which former characters to bring back in the final weeks?
EW:Some of it had to do with who was available but, more important, who could fit into the stories we currently have on the show. We couldn’t bring back some people, like Reva’s sister Cassie, because their stories were too huge and there was too much that would need explaining. We had 35 current characters to wrap up, and even then we ran out of time and couldn’t bring resolution to all of them—like Remy’s parents, Clayton and Felicia.

Surely you’re aware that the “Otalia” fanbase is unhappy with the couple’s lack of physical intimacy. Any response to the complaints that you got cold feet?
EW:I am very satisfied with where Natalia and Olivia end up. Their story came into being when I was asking for [more] romance on the show. And I’m not just talking about flowers and candles and sexual romance. I mean a romance in the sense that love is this grander, broader spectrum through which we look at all things. We wanted to explore the romantic nature of all kinds of love, between parents and children, between friends. Just watching Olivia and Natalia become friends was so precious.

But why so stingy with the kisses?
EW:In developing the end of their story, I found myself wishing we had another year to watch all parts of their relationship as it bloomed and changed. But we did as much as we could on the way out.

The new production model obviously didn’t save GL but do you think other soaps will in any way benefit from what happened here?
I think we achieved a level of nuance and naturalism that is to be admired. But I want to stop you: That’s a little bit of a misnomer there, because [the production model] did save GL for a year and a half.

EW: I’ve seen you quoted elsewhere saying that same thing, and I don’t get it. When this new production model was launched I clearly remember it being promoted as a way to move GL into the future, using information culled from research groups about what today’s viewers want to see on their soaps. It was not stated that the show would be cancelled if you didn’t go with this production model.
EW:I can tell you absolutely that it kept the show on the air. We could not have stayed in the [previous] model with the budget cuts that came down, so something had to change. And the change was going to have to be drastic and enormous. I’m not saying it had to be this exact model, but this was the one we came up with and we had to come up with it pretty quickly. But without taking those budget cuts we were going to be cancelled.

[Logan note: Okay, I’m not that nuts! I went back and looked at my interview with Wheeler in the February 25, 2008 issue of TV Guide Magazine, in which she told me that the switch to the new production model followed a two-year viewer research project conducted by Procter & Gamble. Here’s what she said: “Our audience has been very clear to us. They don’t like the nonreality of soaps—the fake grass, the fact that people in Springfield never seem to go to work or actually do their jobs or take care of their children. They want the stories and characters they love but with the same sense of reality they get from Grey’s Anatomy and other nighttime shows.” Wheeler then ended the interview with: “This is not a desperate survival move. This is a creative, financially efficient way to move soap operas into the future. GL has always led the way.”]

You’ve certainly set new standards for how flexible actors and crew can be. Being on the set was a total guerilla experience. I’ve never seen so many people flying by the seat of their pants.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]EW:[/COLOR] I’m so proud of everyone at GL. They each looked around and saw how many people were involved in this show and dependent on their jobs, and it’s like they all took this communal leap. They didn’t just do it for themselves, they did it for everyone’s benefit. It was a scary leap, but they did it.

Any regrets? If you could climb into a time machine and go back two years, what would you change?
EW:It’s hard to say that I would do very much differently. At the time, we thought through as many possible scenarios as we could and came up with the one we felt was best at the time. I really like where the show ended up. I like the show! I like running into fans who say “I’ve never watched soap operas before but when I was flipping through the channels and I saw GL, I didn’t know what it was, but I started watching.” They started watching when it became something new! I thought we got to a marvelous place where all the elements were starting to really come together, so I don’t know that I would change very much.

I think people were surprised that [CBS Daytime chief] Barbara Bloom didn’t seem to know the cancellation was imminent and expressed shock when it happened. Word is, she was on your set—not long before the ax came down – expressing confidence that you guys would get a pickup.
EW:There are people above in every corporate structure. I can’t talk about what happens at CBS. I know for a fact how devoted P&G Productions has been to keeping their shows on the air. I’m not involved with the network. It would be up to them to answer that.

[Logan note: Bloom was invited to take part in TV Guide’s coverage of GL’s exit from the airwaves but her press rep at CBS did not want to relay the request if I was going to revisit the topic of cancellation. The rep was only willing to put in the request to Bloom if my angle was “what people loved about the show.” So that went no further.]

Were you shocked?
EW:That the show was cancelled?

No, that Bloom was so out of the loop at CBS? That the network programmer who approved—and, we can assume, instigated—the extreme makeover of GL wasn’t involved in the ultimate fate of the show? Doesn’t this suggest that the empress has no clothes? This summer, [CBS Entertainment President] Nina Tassler got up on stage at TCA [the TV critics’ press tour] and pretty much signed the death warrant for As the World Turns. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but there seems to be an increasing disconnect between the true powers-that-be and the network’s daytime division.
EW:I am never surprised by anything that goes on in corporate America. At the same time, I do understand that there is a bottom line and [deciding where that line is] is somebody else’s job. I’m glad it’s not been my job. I’m glad my job has been about telling stories.

The end of GL has triggered much talk in the media about the death of soaps.
We had a tribute to GL at the Paley Center and a lot of our actors were talking about how the ’80s were the heyday of soap operas. But here’s what’s interesting: If you had talked to actors who came from the generation before this, they’d say that the heyday of soaps was the ’70s. The truth is, the heyday of soaps—ratings-wise—was actually the ’60s. We think soaps have been on a decline since the ’90s, but that’s not true. We’ve been on a decline since the ’60s—that’s four decades!—and here it is 2009 and soap operas are still here. That doesn’t make us a fast-sinking ship! It makes us a miracle! While other genres come and go, like sitcoms and westerns and doctor shows, we have remained. I guess I’m feeling honored to be a part of something that has found its way through so much, through so many trying times, and for so long.

It’s sort of hip and flip these days to call soaps “dinosaurs” when, in fact, the dinosaurs lasted longer than anything else on this planet.
EW: We’ve offered a historic breadth, a retrospective view of America for 72 years. Since before World War II we have been reflecting American life back at America and that’s an astounding thing. It’s sad for that to come to a close. I do understand that there is an almost hysterical scramble to figure out what’s next, but it should be acknowledged how amazing it is that soap operas have made it this far! It should be heralded! It shouldn’t be about “Look how soaps are failing.” No! It should be, “Look at how soaps have succeeded!” Now that should be the big media story.

Well said.
EW: GL had been seriously on the chopping block for 12 years. Instead of living in terror every day, we enjoyed every moment we had together. We didn’t know if we had two more months or 20 more years but we were not going to spend that time being terrified. We spent it loving each other and loving telling our stories to the audience. We made the decision to do that and we stuck to it. As sad as this is, most of us feel humbled to be part of this incredible show that was started by Irna Phillips. [Long pause. She chokes up and starts to cry.] To have been given the opportunity to work with this particular, very talented and courageous group of people—who were willing to take something this big to its conclusion—was the most blessed experience of my life.

Source: http://www.tvguidema...eeler-2394.html

Guiding Light Goodbye: Kim Zimmer
by Michael Logan

She’s been cloned. She’s been Amish. She’s been an astral-projecting ghost. She’s even shoved her keister through a magical painting and time-traveled to the American Civil War. But there’s one thing four-time Emmy winner Kim Zimmer hasn’t done in her many years as Guiding Light’s Reva. She hasn’t shut up. And God love her for that! During good plots and bad, this incomparable, irrepressible actress could always be counted on to say what was on her mind, no matter how blistering, no matter how impolitic. And during GL’s controversial and ill-conceived attempt at a new production model, which has been applauded by most of the cast, Zimmer was one of the few who didn’t drink the Kool Aid. I spoke with her on the set of GL during the show’s final days. She did not disappoint.

TVGuide: It’s the end of an era, baby!

Zimmer: Are you going to ask me about the key to Guiding Light’s success?

TVGuide: Well, I wasn’t planning on it, but…

Zimmer: I’ll tell you anyway. It’s the actors. Casting director after casting director after casting director on this show has consistently brought in the best acting talent that exists. In the number of years I’ve been here, I can count the clunkers on one hand. One hand! That’s saying a lot. And those clunkers didn’t last long.

TVGuide: That’s because you’d eat ’em for lunch. I pity the clunker who went up against you.

Zimmer: But I was never mean! [laughs] OK, I have gotten mean and nasty in the last couple of years. I’ve gotten a little bitter.

TVGuide: Why’s that? You’ve had a great career here.

Zimmer: It has been a great career but it kills me that GL came to this. It’s no secret that I do not like [she rolls her eyes and makes air quotes] the new production model. I’m just glad I was around for the show’s heyday. People got caught up in the stories because they were pretend. There are no more of those ‘Calgon Take Me Away’ moments. Now it’s all so real, it’s depressing as hell. And it doesn’t help that the cameras put us right in your face.

TVGuide: You’ve gone to some pretty nutty places on this show, but the clone story was the nuttiest ever, yes?

Zimmer: Yeah, but don’t forget I went from being cloned into that time-travel story, so you tell me what’s crazier. I guess playing the fast-aging Reva clone who looked 50 but was really only six months old was the craziest. They named her Dolly, after the world’s first cloned sheep, and every time I came on the set to do that role, guys on the crew would go “Baaa-aaa-aaa!” It was horrible.

TVGuide: Did being heckled bring back all your old high-school insecurities?

Zimmer: Oh hell no! Back then, I was applauded when I walked into the classroom, thank you very much. Of course, I was usually flashing…

TVGuide: Why do you think so many writers over so many years took Reva to such bizarre places?

Zimmer: I guess because as an actress I’ll go anywhere. And because I’ll go anywhere I’ve taken a lot of s--t from the fans and the press. But you know what? We’re hired to do what the writers give us. And if you do it any less than 99.9 percent it’s really gonna suck. Like you just said, even though these stories—well, you didn’t say it, but I’m going to pretend you said it—even though a lot of the Reva stories were way out there I always committed to them. I committed to the point where they were believable. If you don’t commit to a story, it’ll look like you really hate it, and who wants to watch that? Now I could certainly tell the press that I hated a storyline—and I often did—but I don’t think it ever showed in my performances. Ever. And, eventually, the audience actually believed in the clone. They accepted her as real and got upset when they killed her off. They were like, “What a cop out! We were just starting to like the *****. And now you’re killing her. C’mon!”

TVGuide: About the cancellation…

Zimmer: The new way we shoot the show led to us being canceled so easily. We dug ourselves into a deep hole that was impossible to get out of. At one point before we got the ax, someone associated with GL —and I won’t mention them by name—gave a speech to the cast and likened our situation to us all being on a airplane that was about to crash-land. That’s a pep talk? That’s encouraging? I mean how are you supposed to absorb that? I was, like, “How the hell do I get off this plane?”

TVGuide: So you were OK with the cancellation?

Zimmer: The good thing about the cancellation, which happened April 1, was that my contract was up on June 27. If we were staying on the air, I was going to have to make the decision whether I was going to be a bitch for another two years and do the job just because it was a job and keep continuing to suck it up and do the work, or leave and be happy. They made the decision for me.

TVGuide: It appears that Josh and Reva do not reunite in the final days of GL [though a flash-forward coda at the end of the final episode may suggest otherwise]. You OK with that?

Zimmer: Well, sure because Jeffrey is alive and out there in the universe. Listen, if CBS had given us another year, things could have swung around so Josh and Reva could get back together. But the timing was off. Jeffrey was a nice diversion for Reva and vice versa, and there is a very strong fanbase that wants them together, but the Josh and Reva fanbase is bigger. If Jeffrey’s out of the picture in the future, Josh and Reva could co-exist. I don’t see them making the mistake of marrying again but Reva knows what an incredible father Josh has always been, so she would want Josh to raise Colin [Reva’s son with Jeffrey]. But we’ll leave that to the fans. When GL goes off the air, they’ll go on the internet and create fan fiction like crazy.

TVGuide: They’ll finally control the show! Any regrets? I can’t help but think you’re jealous of “Otalia.” After all the groundbreaking stories you did on GL, didn’t it annoy you that they didn’t pick Reva to be a latent lesbian? We could have had “Revalia”!

Zimmer: No, I am not jealous! People keep saying I should go on The Bold and the Beautiful and do it with Susan Flannery [Stephanie]. I’m like, “Why? Why would you even put that idea out there?” I mean, I love Susan, but let’s draw the line!

TVGuide: You don’t want to play lesbian?
Oh, I’d do it! But can’t I have someone younger? Susan and I would have a great time playing together but I want someone younger.

TVGuide: Ah, you want to join the Susan Lucci Cougar Club! So you’re open to more soap work?

Zimmer: I would love to be able to book three months here and six months there and do all the soaps. I don’t want to sign another contract unless it’s something fabulous. I mean, how do you top Reva? [laughs] It’s a good thing GL’s going off the air because what’s left for me to do? I’ve played Reva as a fiftysomething pregnant woman with cancer. I’ve played her as a psychic and a royal princess. She’s been just about everything but Jesus Christ.

TVGuide: Though, come to think of it, she did come back from the dead.
Close enough!
____________________________________________


Comment: I know she's bigger than life (just ask her), but I adore her honesty. She truly doesn't care what people think about her - she marches to the beat of her own drummer, and that's to be applauded. I'm certain she'll surface again - she's a great actor and can do it all.

I'm glad she acknowledged that McEyeliner was just a diversion for Reva, and that the Reva/Josh fanbase is bigger than the McEyeliner/Reva one.

It's over in one week; hard to believe. Still seems unnecessary and unjustified. I hope all the actors enjoy their well deserved rest and then go where life takes them.

Source: TVGuide.com with Michael Logan