You can fool most of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time… but you have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool us here at The TV Addict. (We’re big fans of sleeping in, so anything you pull before, say, 9 a.m.? Chances are, you’ll get away with it.)
Name-Your-Own-Price outlet Priceline.com announced that a new ad will center on the death of their corporate mascot, the Negotiator played since 2007 by William Shatner. In the new ad, the actor best known as Captain Kirk is seen safely seeing passengers off a bus just before it plunges off a bridge and explodes into a ball of fire.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Negotiator!
Or so they want us to believe.
But anybody who believes that Shatner’s alter ego really perished in that accident has never watched a daytime soap. Fans of that genre know that dying is easy… staying dead? That’s another matter indeed. The bus in question is crossing a bridge over a river… you know, like the body of water into which ALL MY CHILDREN’s Greenlee died after her motorcycle was accidentally run off the road by her best friend. (Hey, these things happen.) Greenlee was even wearing her wedding gown at the time of the accident. And yet a few years later, Greens rose from her watery grave and resumed a perfectly normal (by soap standards) life. (Again, these things happen… surprisingly often in towns like Pine Valley, Genoa City and Llanview.)
So yeah, we’re not fooled, Priceline.com. We know what you’re up to! And we won’t be a bit surprised when the next trip Mr. Negotiator has to book proves that he bought a round-trip ticket to Heaven. 
Richard M. Simms is the executive editor of Soaps In Depth magazine and the author of the book Crimes Against Civility.