If I had to choose the soap opera character I've enjoyed the most so far this year I'd say it's Deacon Sharpe (played by Sean Kanan) on The Bold and the Beautiful. Deacon is a sleazy nightclub owner who has given the we're-so-powerful-who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are Forrester fashion dynasty a run for its money over the possession of baby Eric. (Little Eric is Deacon's biological son by the late Becky, Amber's cousin.)

The long complicated backstory started when Amber secretly foisted her cousin Becky's son - really fathered by Deacon - on Rick as the dead baby of theirs she never told Rick she buried. Amber eventually confessed, and little Eric went back to Becky and future husband C.J. Then Becky died. Deacon, who originally deserted Becky when she was pregnant, came to town after Rick tracked him down. Amber and Rick, wanting so badly to keep the baby they had always loved, offered Deacon money for him. Deacon refused the money just before he was supposed to sign over the baby. Most of Deacon's struggle has been directly with Amber, but the Forresters have gradually taken the side of their daughter-in-law.

The ongoing tug-of-war over the baby has been vastly entertaining; there have been lots of delicious crossing and double-crossing between the two sides. With Deacon's latest move - marrying Eric and Brooke's beautiful, virginal (at least, she was) young daughter Bridget to get back at the Forresters and to win back Amber - Deacon has effectively given the often self-righteous Forresters the big, hard kick in the butt that they have deserved ever since the show debuted in 1987! (Think of all the characters the Forresters have run roughshod over through the years - like Sally Spectra and her now defunct daughter Macy, and most recently Morgan, whom Stephanie forced to abort Ridge's child, thus driving her insane.)

How has one character, Deacon, been so singularly effective in his faceoff with B&B's almighty first family of fashion? His storyline has worked so well due to canny soap writing - and a breakout performance from Kanan! That's right, the same Kanan who was good but far from stellar in the role of A.J. Quartermaine on General Hospital, and forgettable in his brief role as Jude Cavanaugh on Sunset Beach. In his performance as Deacon, Kanan seems to have added enormous depth to his work. There is something about his brooding intensity, his ultra-hip dark clothes and his new facial hair that just scream out sensuous and ultracool. Deacon is simultaneously sexy, vile, compelling and humorous. That's soap opera gold!

It helps that B&B's head writer/executive producer Bradley Bell knows his soap archetypes. Like Luke Spencer on GH, Todd Manning on One Life to Live and early Tad Martin on All My Children, Deacon started his soap life as a bad boy. As was the case with these earlier bad boys, human shadings have been gradually added to make him more sympathetic to the audience. Remember years ago, after Todd's gang-rape trial, when his adoptive father came to town and it was revealed that he regularly beat Todd as a child? On B&B, Deacon's stepfather came to his apartment early on and robbed him, revealing the sort of abuse Deacon dealt with in his youth. Then Deacon did the one thing that good soap villains inevitably do - he fell in love with his child (even renaming him Little D.) Remember long ago on Guiding Light, how evil Roger Thorpe would do anything for his daughter Christina (who grew up to be Blake)? Isn't it sweet the way Todd really loves his daughter, Starr?

Yes, B&B has humanized the character, but the fun part about Deacon, as likeable as he has become, is that he still does rotten things. After marrying Bridget, Deacon made the Forresters listen via telephone to the sounds of him deflowering their precious little girl! That was outrageous and downright hilarious! Earlier, the mighty Forresters had almost blown up Los Angeles when it was revealed that Deacon had married their Bridget. Bridget's mother, Brooke, flared her nostrils and popped her eyes out so far that I was afraid she was going to have a stroke. Daddy Eric became almost as vengeful as Charles Bronson in Death Wish, going so far as to purposely hit Deacon with his car.

When Jennifer Finnigan, who plays Bridget, debuted a year ago, I wrote that I thought she was a very good young actress. So it's great to see her being fully utilized in this plot with Kanan. The two of them are a wonderful acting couple. There's something very entertaining in how the Big Bad Wolf stole Little Red Riding Hood right out from under the noses of her family - just to spite them. I predict that Deacon will do what soap bad boys inevitably do - fall head-over-heels in love with Bridget. I just pray Momma Brooke, who has slept with most of the male characters on B&B over the years, can restrain herself from putting her hooks in Deacon's sexy derriere.