News Brief

NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Five Young Soap Stars To Watch
A panel of experts - Connie Passalacqua, Carolyn Hinsey, Michael Logan, Ed Martin and Terry Morrow - selected five soap stars who are the most "promising New York–based up-and-comers: the most likely to follow in the footsteps of such lauded soap graduates as Meg Ryan (AS THE WORLD TURNS), Guy Pearce (Australia's NEIGHBOURS), and Melissa Leo (ALL MY CHILDREN)." Marcy Rylan, Caitlin Van Zandt, John-Paul Lavoisier, Van Hansis and Kristen Alderson made the list.

Deep Soap: Stop The Presses
Sara A. Bibel blogs: "If you’ve been to any soap opera sites in the past few days, you’ve probably seen it. It’s the juiciest scandal to hit daytime in years, a demonstration of the power of the internet, a sickening unprofessional attack, sweet revenge that anyone who’s had a cruel boss can appreciate, the eventual subject of someone’s Communications Masters’ Thesis. Take your pick. Thursday the website Jossip, which covers the publishing industry, posted a routine item about Soap Opera Weekly editor-in-chief Carolyn Hinsey being let go from the magazine. What happened next was more surprising than anything that’s happened on a soap opera in the past year."

TOM CASIELLO: On Carolyn Hinsey
"I think she's a very passionate fan of soap opera. I think she stands out in a crowd in numerous ways. I think she's very vocal and out-spoken. I think (like most of us out here on the Web, including myself) she has a LOT of opinions - some of which I agree with, and some of which I don't. I think (much like myself) she gleefully and happily loved working within an industry where she was already a fan, and had already viewed so many she worked alongside from a fan perspective prior to working with them professionally. I think she was always nice to me. I also think she wasn't always nice to some of my friends. I think sometimes she was dead-on… and other times, she was so wrong, I couldn't help but wonder why there weren't more repercussions. I think absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I think what happened with Carolyn is probably something that would happen to most anybody in her shoes, given that much power that quickly. I'm sorry the whole situation was allowed to get to his point, but I'm also sorry somebody lost their job."

Ellen Wheeler hopes to save the daytime soap with a little reality and … Jonathan Safran Foer?
After more than 50 years of surrogate births, shotgun weddings, sordid divorces, steamy affairs, and myriad multiple-personality-disorder diagnoses, it seems the most unthinkable scenario is about to play out: TV soap operas are edging toward a dramatic death. Perhaps that’s why Ellen Wheeler is praying in church.

Wheeler is the executive producer of GUIDING LIGHT, CBS’ long-running soap. In fact, it is the longest-running show in broadcast history. And this quiet former Episcopal church with a few remaining pews is actually part of her midtown office, which doubles as a television studio, with crosses and votive candles strategically positioned by production assistants. A place of hope is the ideal location for Wheeler’s show, which, like all soaps, is losing viewers faster than ALL MY CHILDREN's Erica Kane goes through husbands. But GUIDING LIGHT is pulling in the fewest viewers of all (2.5 million daily viewers, down more than half from ten years ago).

“I get teary, and I hate that,” Wheeler says. Her tendency to choke up in the middle of a conversation could be attributed to either her nightly four hours of sleep or to her former career as a soap star. (Her portrayal of good-and-evil twins Vicky and Marley Love Hudson on ANOTHER WORLD earned her the 1986 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Ingénue in a Drama Series.) “If you listened to the New York Giants throughout [last] season, they really believed in themselves when no one else did. We also believe in ourselves. We have nowhere to go but up.”

Should the unspeakable happen and GUIDING LIGHT get canceled, it’s unlikely the rest of the underperforming shows will be spared. Will anyone care except the soap fanatic? “The thing about soap operas that’s so special is they make you realize how similar we all are,” says Wheeler. “Oh, gosh, I’m going to get sad.” Her voice catches, and she pauses to wipe a tear away. “Sometimes we feel very isolated and on our own, and soaps give you a chance to look at other people’s lives and say, ‘I’ve felt just like them. I’ve never had a beautiful Australian come out of the blue and fall in love with me, but I’ve felt the way Marina feels.’ ”

HIV horror on HOLLYOAKS
HOLLYOAKS is preparing for one of its most dramatic storylines yet (and that's saying something), as playboy Malachy Fisher's lascivious lifestyle comes back to haunt him. Malachy, played by Glen Wallace, goes to give blood, but the results show he is HIV positive. Not only has he endangered his own health, but he has risked that of his new flame Mercedes (Jennifer Metcalfe).

SCRIPTS & SCRUPLES: Episode #843
Matt and Henry are both upset following Friday's "drama" at Blake's office. Tom Baran (Tony, AS THE WORLD TURNS) joins the cast today as Casey Sanders. Casey is calm, cool and collected on the outside but has a past he wants to forget.


DAYS spotlights autism through Carver family
After talks with Autism Speaks, Dena Higley concluded that introducing an autistic child, dealing with the grief and deciding what to do for the child was enough, so she was not going to get into causality.

Higley selected the Carvers -Abe and Lexie (James Reynolds, Renee Jones) -as the perfect candidates because they're both professionals, and, as she points out, "They're both can-do, take charge, problem-solving people who are now being given a problem they can't solve."