News Round-up

INTERVIEW: GUIDING LIGHT's John Driscoll (Coop)
"I was told about it in November and I get called into Ellen's [Wheeler, executive producer] office and all of a sudden she starts tearing up. I had this smile on my face and I said, 'It's okay. Go ahead and say it; it's fine.' She said, CBS wants some drama and this isn't the story we want to do, but this is the one they seemed most interested in."

Deep Soap: Minority Report
Sara A. Bibel blogs: "I came to a disheartening realization this Black History Month: a disproportionate number of the storylines that make me hit the fast forward button feature minority characters. The minority characters who are in well written, frontburner storylines tend to be those who have close connections to white characters."

HOUSEWIVES scoop: Is Dana Delany next to go?
"Everyone is vulnerable on Wisteria Lane -- any of us could go," co-star Dana Delany admitted at Saturday's Independent Spirit Awards. "Every single person in that cast feels like their days are numbered. I think [Marc] likes to keep people on their toes."

An upcoming episode that finds (spoiler alert!) Katherine and Mike (James Denton) embarking on a camping trip with resident psycho Dave (Neal McDonough) did nothing to ease Delany's anxiety. "Trust me, I was worried the minute I read that," confessed the actress. "[Dave's] clearly not right in the head, and he has already wrongfully accused people of crimes, punched people, and killed people. But it's good because that sense of not knowing keeps the actors on their toes and it keeps the audience anticipating."

Delany says HOUSEWIVES losing an icon in Sheridan
“The Edie character — and Nicollette in particular — is such an iconic figure,” she told PEOPLE Thursday at the “Oscar Wilde: Honoring The Irish in Film” event in Los Angeles. “She’s a classic — a classic femme fatale.”

The DVD waiting game
Your favorite TV show comes out on DVD, so you start your collection by buying the first-season set. Later comes the second-season set. And then ... you wait. And wait. And subsequent seasons never appear. Call it DVD series interruptus. DVD collectors now know some music-laden series stop coming out when studios can't balance the high cost of licensing song rights with a fair retail price.

Peter Flanigan: NEIGHBOURS saved my career
Peter Flanigan has revealed he thought his acting days were over before winning his role in NEIGHBOURS. Flanigan cut his acting teeth on AS THE WORLD TURNS during his early days as a model in New York, but didn't enjoy the experience and thought his time as an actor was over.

"A friend of mine convinced me to go back to acting, so I decided to give it another shot and I got the role as Andrew Simpson," he explained.

Peter added that he was enjoying his time on the soap. He told the official Neighbours website: "I'm really enjoying my time on NEIGHBOURS. I love the location shooting and the people. Everybody here has been really helpful and they're all so interesting.