Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)

[DRW50]

I wonder why they got rid of Elliott. I guess Raven was moving on into other stories, but I love the days when Raven has Elliott, Derek, and then over in the corner, Logan is pining for her.

I see what you mean about the group of April, Draper, Logan, Elliot, and Steve and Deborah too. And Calvin. I think they add a lot of believability and quiet energy - as good as some of the episodes from a few years earlier are, they drag a bit, as does some of the early 80's material.

What did you think of the story with Frank Gorshin?

[Max]

It was not the network switch, per se, that doomed EON. Rather, it was the fact that so many ABC stations dropped the show or never carried it from the start or gave it an odd time slot. I think that EON may have been one of the most commercially successful shows of the 80's if all ABC stations actually showed it at 4:00 P.M.

I was amazed to read that WPVI (Channel 6, Philadelphia) never carried EON during its entire run on ABC. This was a huge blow to the show, given that WPVI has been the dominant channel in Philadelphia for over forty years. (WPVI was owned by Capital Cities. Largely due to the strength of Channel 6, Capital Cities was able to acquire ABC, a company ten times its size.)

What other ABC stations went down in infamy for never carrying EON, dropping it before the finale (please state when it was dropped), or airing it in oddball timeslots? (I imagine that the list is very long.) I'm also interested in the ABC stations that were going to drop EON in January 1985 (which, of course, instead led to EON's cancellation).

Edited August 5, 2011 by Max

[edgeofnik]

Max: Even with the low clearance, ABC still wanted EON, but P&G did not want to continue. I was in St. Louis and the CBS and NBC soaps were by far the most dominant. (In fact St. Louis was the #1 market for Y&R in the US for years.) The ABC affiliate aired EON starting in 1981 after Nightline and another show. It usually came on at 12:40 am or later. I discovered it by accident and was hooked immediately, so I started recording (or staying up late!). Surprisingly, they kept it there until the end. It was interesting because I started seeing letters to the local paper's TV section asking questions about EON - like the time when Larkin Malloy was out for a few weeks due to an accident and was replaced and viewers were complaining. I then realized, I was not alone!

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtWRlF0Me4M

[edgeofnight]

Truly wonderful...what a way to start my day! Thank you!

[Mitch]

LOL, now that is a LONG intro... I didnt realize they took the same music and lyrics and "updated," to that discoey version of the 80s (and really the one I love the most as that is when I started watching it.) One of the things I first liked about my partner of 17 years is that he knew the lyrics to the Edge theme song, (yea, I know, I am dorky but that is pretty quirky for a staid finance investments kind of guy.)

My mom lurrrved Edge when I was a kid, so that and ATWT (and Dark Shadows though my mom didnt watch that) were the shows I remember most and picked back up when I was a teen. I remember a location shoot involving some woman being chased by a maniac, up the stairs of the lighthouse and the maniac falls down the stairs and dies. Also, they were trying to Gaslight Chief Marcel's wife and someone poured blood in her closet but off course, cleaned it up when she screamed and got some one to look at it. It was pretty cool stuff for a kid!

Though my ultimate fave EON plot was probably reviled my most on here, it was the Isis Building. I LOVED the wheelchair guy, his sister, their incestuous relationship and the mind control of Monticello (leave to Raven to be the one to pick up on something being weird and always throwing a coat over the Isis statue so the creepy crippled guy couldnt watch her.) It was so stupid it was GREAT!!

[DRW50]

Is the story with the woman trying to kill Raven the one in the dark house? This is a promo of part of it, when she was trying to kill April.

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I think that was the Clown Puppet Murder story, which is a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Clown puppets have never been so scary. And it's the only soap mystery I can think of where a big break was found in a porn magazine.

[quartermainefan]

It may be, I think so. I watched these episodes a few years back at aolvideo and scenes like this stood out to me because this was dialogue about real feelings everyone eventually has. Then I watch crap like I saw yesterday with Nancy Lee Grahn on GH, where despite being 50, 60 whatever she is, she is still just oh so energetic and youthful and attractive to the bartender--which is just absurd. And Carolyn Hennesy is parading around in something out of Victoria's Secret at 50. And to me, this scene you linked was 400 times better because there was something for the actress to sink her teeth into and the show did not have this ridiculous need to hide her age. I think it continues the next episode.

Edited August 13, 2011 by quartermainefan

[quartermainefan]

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uyRWldNKpFg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Maybe it was both that and this combined. I love the way she reflects on saying "In my day".

[Paul Raven]

[DRW50]

A Digest issue from January 1980.

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsYd3zLYFfw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[Khan]

Love in the afternoon? More like death in the afternoon!

[edgeofnik]

LOL. MURDER was the premise of EON and, honestly, no one did it better consistently then or has since.

[DRW50]

This is from a September 1982 Digest issue.