Evening News

CanMag: White Noise was a surprise success with Michael Keaton searching for his dead wife in the static of electronic fuzz. White Noise 2 takes a slightly different approach with Nathan Fillion as a vessel for the afterlife. Despite that, the acting demands balanced out for Fillion. "I say it everyday. All of the jobs I’ve had, this is the least demanding. I have next to no dialogue. There’s a lot of brooding, a lot of moping. There’s a lot of confusion, frustration, dawning. Lots of dawning. This is something I learned in the soap opera. We use to do this all the time. In a soap opera you’ll have a scene going on between two characters and at the end of the scene is a slow close-up on one of the characters, right? What are they going to say next? It’s almost like a long drawn out close and the scene never seems to end and you’re left there kind of acting. So what we use to do was we called it three phases of a soap take and it works in any scene, any show, whatever you’re doing. And these are the three phases. The first phase is: did I leave the stove on? Next phase: I did leave the stove on. Third phase: no, I turned the stove off."

Soap Opera Weekly: Cady McClain speaks about her exit from "As The World Turns": "I cannot understand why in a medium that caters to women, intelligent female characters have to be set up to be stupid and emotionally impulsive… “punished” for actions they would never have taken without a gun to their head… and left begging and pathetic. AS an actress, it was not romantic. It was embarrassing. Almost as bad as the pancakes, and that’s saying something. I have to wonder what the hell is going on these days. Are strong, smart women so threatening that they have to be vilified? I think they should be celebrated, but what do I know? Maybe I need a boob job."

Back Stage: Date for former "Days of our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless" star Jeanne Bates Memorial Set.

CBS: Attention Y&R and PRICE Fans: Preemption Alert! KOVR Sacramento preempted THE PRICE IS RIGHT and THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS today, January 4, due to live news coverage. KOVR will air both shows in late night beginning at 1:00 am.

Soap Opera Digest: Interview with "General Hospital" star Jacklyn Zeman. "I've told my girls since they were little that beauty comes from within. We all come in different shapes and sizes and who's to say what's prettier? Lacey said to me once when she was 7, 'Mommy, who's prettier? Cassidy or me?' And I said, 'You're both pretty, but it's more about your soul and what you're going to contribute to the world. It's nice to have looks, but they fade quickly, so you can't dwell on it. Some people will think you're prettier because you've got brown hair and brown eyes and olive skin, and some people are going to think Cassidy's prettier because she has blond hair and blue eyes and light skin. And she said to me, 'Yeah, people sure do like that blond hair, don't they [laughs]?' And as a redhead, I could relate!”

Marlena De Lacroix: Soaps’ Scab Scripts: Seinfelds They Ain’t. "We’ve just passed New Year’s, and a certain ennui has set in this week on soaps. This winter of Marlena’s discontent is made worse by the arrival of scab-written scripts. Are they here so soon? On 'General Hospital' and 'The Young and the Restless,' this would seem to be the case. Are there more? Perhaps. I’m listening closely, trying to take some small amusement in detecting that moment when the generally bad writing we’ve all gotten used to turns a corner and actually gets worse."

Serial Drama: The American Bitchass Company, Part the Second. ABC's humiliation of Sabine Singh will not be complete until they post her address on their homepage, inviting people to join in as they egg her home in retaliation for stealing, via deadly force, the role of Greenlee from Rebecca Budig.

Georgia Straight: Degrassi: The Next Generation (Mondays at 7:30 p.m., CTV; from January 14) Season seven of this Gemini Award–winning series premieres with a two-episode special on Thursday, January 10, at 8 p.m., before returning to its regular time slot.