Guiding Light's Dinah (Gina Tognoni) gave the quote of the day when she and Shayne (Jeff Branson) decided  they needed to be apart, and she told him "Merry freakin' Christmas!" What was your favorite quote today on soaps?

Despite gloom and doom about the state of daytime in almost all of its aspects, fans have been treated to some good soap opera lately. The Young and the Restless is the Must See Soap right now. One Life to Live has regained it's glory and Guiding Light is steadily improving. Some of daytime's best actors are giving some of the performances of their lives. With that in mind, there are three performers new to their respective shows deserving of special mention who I think are doing a bang up job.

JR MARTINEZ (Brot Monroe, All My Children)

Introduced amid a publicity blitz, JR Martinez came aboard AMC with a fascinating, real life backstory: an Iraq War veteran seriously injured and disfigured by explosives, eventually becoming a noted inspirational speaker for and on behalf of veterans coping with their life altering injuries. His addition to AMC's canvas was purposeful and deliberate. The show wanted a real life injured vet to play Brot, former love of newcomer Taylor (Beth Ehlers).

AMC has received much justly deserved praise for casting Martinez, but make no mistake, this was as much a bit of stunt casting as it was groundbreaking decision. READ MORE

I am not a film student. I am not a TV producer. I do not profess to be, nor do I ever intend to claim that I know the ins and outs of producing either a TV show or a movie.

What I do claim to be is a consumer of both products. An avid consumer actually. I watch countless hours of television in both daytime, primetime and on the web. My DVR routinely maxs out with programming that I need to watch or catch up on, not to mention all of the TV I end up watching live. I even have a TV tuner card that can record TV shows to my computer as a back up just in case something might go wrong with my DVR, lest I miss one of my favorite shows.

I love movies, though my Movie Junkie podcast co-hosts Susan and Craig and more than a few Movie Junkie listeners scratch their heads at my tastes, it can't be argued that I don't love movies. 

After Guiding Light switched to the Lauren Conrad Blair Witch filming format we here at Daytime Confidential discussed in depth and in detail how we felt about the new format on our weekly CBS and Days of Our Lives episodes and in our special Top 10 Ways to Improve Guiding Light episodes. Since then one of the producers or executives, I don't remember which and it doesn't really matter, at CBS or Guiding Light said that the show will never go back to the classic soap filming style and in many respects I've come to terms with this stark reality. READ MORE

I love them! They have tons of chemistry.

I haven't seen enough but they have potential.

They don't have any chemistry.

All My Children's loss is Guiding Light's gain. Check out this photo shoot of Jeff Branson and Gina Tognoni.

While The Young and the Restless and One Life to Live are the two must see soaps on daytime right now, our schizophrenic As the World Turns is firing on most of the right cylinders and can't be counted out of the fight. The last time I posted about ATWT, I had a great many concerns about the direction of the show and it's storylines given the supersonic speed by which they are told. In the last week however, the show has made me sit up and take notice with some interesting developments. READ MORE