Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)

[robbwolff]

The Isis building was part of the subliminal perception storyline I referenced earlier. A number of Edge's characters rented offices in the building, including Cliff, Didi, and Miles. Some of the tenants, like Didi, started going insane. I think Van Dine owned the building. When Cliff caught on to what was happening, he was locked up and tortured in the building.

I don't watch today's soaps regularly but I found Sheldon's Edge very similar to today's soaps. I remember not being aware that Henry Slesar had been fired. When Sheldon's work started airing in May 1983, within minutes I noticed a very drastic shift in Edge. The writing was different and scenes were short, not unlike Carlivati's General Hospital. Sheldon sped up Edge's pace. Three weeks after he arrived, Nicole was dead. Three months later, Miles was sexing it up with new cop Chris Egan. Suddenly we had lots of short story arcs involving characters we hardly knew. I still enjoyed Edge until the end, but it was a very different show under Sheldon.

[NothinButAttitude]

Interesting. This makes me wanna see this entire arc from start to finish and crazy as it sounds.

[amybrickwallace]

Me, too!!!

[Paul Raven]

I think Lee Sheldon was finding his feet writing daytime,rather like Michael Malone in his early OLTL days. It was all probably too late but if Edge had hired a new producer that got the show....

[victorlord75]

I never knew that part about Lee Sheldon's plans for the show. The Nicole double would have been a great story, and I'm sorry that those plans never made it past the drawing board. I have to throw in my two cents and say that I don't think the executive producer or the headwriter were the main problems with the show. The main problems were too low a budget for lavish production (though they did a fabulous job with what they had on hand), and the wrong time slot. I think with proper promotion, and the right time slot, the show would have found an audience, because the acting and story were quite good.

[robbwolff]

I'm pretty sure I read that Lisa Sloan was going to return in 1985. Plus, Ernie Townsend as Cliff Nelson. Additionally, I recall reading that Mark McEwen was cast as the new police chief. McEwen later became a weatherman at CBS news. There was discussion about this on Danfling's board some years back. One person said:

The story of Nicole's return was not aborted due to cancellation. Lisa Sloan left to try her luck in Hollywood and quickly realized she had made a mistake. She asked to return to Edge of Night. Sheldon devised a plot that would have been similar to the Julie Jamison/Laura Hillyer plot line. Sloan would have returned as a Nicole lookalike, and Miles was to have become obsessed with her, just as Orin Hillyer had been with Julie Jamison. The twist was that the lookalike would have been a villainess who would have exploited her resemblance to Nicole. Sheldon sowed the seeds to the story on air. Miles and Chris Egan went away from Monticello on some type of police business, and Miles spotted a woman who looked like Nicole in a restaurant. This may have been when Miles and Chris went to bed together for the first time. According to Sheldon, ABC and P&G vetoed the story.

Not sure how accurate this was. In an interview, Sheldon said that there were no stories that he wasn't allowed to do.

And here's Sheldon's description of the Isis storyline:

Our "1984" story. I wanted to do a conspiracy "big brother" story that was more up to date and utilized new technology. The story dealt with an attempt to manipulate an election by eavesdropping on households and subliminal perception techniques broadcast through a cable TV system. It started with the death of a long-running character Nicole Cavanaugh (the actress wanted to leave the show to try her luck in Hollywood), and ended nine months later with a commando raid by almost all of the male stars of the show, as they were dropped from a helicopter on to the roof of the high-rise office building from which the culprits were broadcasting. The final two weeks of the story were televised in "real time" with each episode beginning with a clock counting down the minutes to the election much the way the TV series 24 is now produced two decades later.

[NothinButAttitude]

I need to see this story badly.

[victorlord75]

I remember a goofy scene where Schuyler and Raven were hiding inside a car in the parking deck of the ISIS building, and in a very "Hart to Hart"-like moment, Raven brought out champagne glasses and popped open a bottle of champagne, with the popped cork hitting hard on the ceiling of the car. Raven snickered (along these lines), "Good thing this is a rental car!"

[NothinButAttitude]

OK. No need to sell it anymore to me. I am going to need P&G to open up the vault and let me see these clips!

[sungrey]

Oh, God... that Nicole Cavanaugh death episode was so sad. I remember watching it and thinking "Did they REALLY kill off Nicole?"

I had mixed thoughts on Lee. I LOVED Henry Slesar, as pretty much everyone did on this board. Other posters were right about Lee. You knew the difference right away when Lee's scripts began. The scenes were much shorter, there was a lot of cutting, and sometimes one or two days would change in the same episode. That's not really a no-no, but most of the action in an episode should take place in one day's time...

I thought Nicole's death story was well done. I had mixed feelings about the ISIS story. It was a well-done story in some areas, but it kind of reminded me of the sci-fi stuff General Hospital was doing at the time and I don't know if it really belonged on Edge. But if they were trying to hook a younger audience, then it wasn't an outright bomb.

Would have liked to see the Standing Elk plot proceed further, but some people at the network didn't like it, from what I understand.

My favorite Edge story during Sheldon's reign was "Who killed Logan Swift". It had a few twists and turns and the revelation of who killed Logan was a complete surprise... but it made so much sense. I won't spoil it here (but if someone else wants to, go ahead... lol).

Sheldon would never be Slesar, but he was showing signs of getting it in the final months. It's a crime we never got to see how he would have improved.

[LoyaltoAMC]

Bringing on Lisa Sloan as Nicole's double sounds very interesting. Considering that Joel Crothers passed away the year after Edge's cancellation, you have to wonder if the story would've been quickly aborted had the show gone on. Out of respect to Crothers' memory, I highly doubt they would've recast Miles.

[robbwolff]

It was great to see the episode where Nicole died after all these years. I remember Soap Opera Digest reporting that Lisa Sloan was leaving but the story didn't spoil how she was being written off. So I was genuinely surprised when Nicole died. That music when Miles cradles her body disturbed me then and still does today. Very chilling.

Sheldon said the Standing Elk story was supposed to run for six months was aborted after just two or three months.

[quartermainefan]

It is a bummer that all the soaps have such a heavy presence on YT but EoN doesn't. I guess being canceled in 1984 is the main reason, on top of the tiny audience. I soon started tuning out after the Nicole murder. It was becoming a lot of Preacher this and Preacher that, and Jodi, and I lost interest.

[amybrickwallace]

A friend found the Hart to Hart inspired EON episode with the line about the champagne and the rental car. LOL Here are Sharon Gabet and Larkin Malloy having fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_nOP4pPXgs#t=52

[victorlord75]

Thank you Thank you Thank you for sharing this link. It reminded me of how fun "Edge" was, and how much I miss it, even today. I remember some reporters in the soap press at the time calling Schuyler and Raven "The Nick and Nora Charles of Daytime", while others bestowed that title on Robert and Holly Scorpio from General Hospital. In my view, the title was much more deserved by our "Edge of Night" heroes!