Back By Popular Demand And Appearing For One Turn-Of-The-World Only: The Evil Dr. John Dixon

I've been a CBS soap girl since, well, forever. I was definitely part of an abused minority during my college days and the Luke & Laura craze.

I make no apologies for watching soaps. It's mind candy (hey, at least I don't watch Grey's Anatomy). Alas, CBS killed my favorite opera (Guiding Light) last year.

These days, I'll occasionally catch snippets of The Young & The Restless (Y&R) or As The World Turns (ATWT) on my lunch breaks . . . and I read the recaps online about once a week . . . but a world without Josh & Reva is not just the same.

I mean really, how many times can you watch Victor "You Got That?!?" Newman dump the incredibly/un-naturally well-preserved Nicki for some younger/firmer blond? Or Jack & Carly screw up?

So. Since I ABSOLUTELY HATE The Bold & The Beautiful (B&B), when As The World Turns goes off the air in September, I'll pretty much be done with soaps.

I've been checking the news on Soap Central on an infrequent basis - just to see if any of the old ATWT characters would pop up on the canvas before their world stops turning. It's not happening as much as I expected/would have liked . . . because CBS has an unfortunate habit of treating even their best-loved daytime actors like crap . . . and apparently when some of them said they'd never set foot on the set again, they MEANT it.

But lo & behold if some simply absofrickinglutely wonderful news was not announced this week . . . Larry Bryggman, who was last seen as the deliciously EVIL Dr. John Dixon in late 2004, is coming back for one episode.

It is a wish come true.

Now, apart from the late great Michael Zaslow as Roger Thorpe on GL, Bryggman's Dr. John Dixon was simply the most delightfully, sick, warped, irascible, contemptible, charming, lovable EVIL villain EVER on a soap opera.

The good doctor was just a bad, Bad, BAD man. And I loved him. And I've missed him.

I am so psyched. Given the nature of his sudden/unexplained departure, it would be SWEET to see Dr. John just stroll through Memorial Hospital and interact with characters (especially his ex-wives) as if he'd never left . . . sweeter still to watch Bryggman chew a little scenery and spit it out in the way that only he could.

He was magnificent.