Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)

[danfling]

In one of the first commercials on the ninety-minute episode of The Edge of Night (its premiere on ABC), the actress playing the policewoman looks an awful lot like Mari Gorman, who played Taffy Simms on the show.

Also (later in the episode) in the commercial for Roman Brio cologne, that is certainly Joel Crothers, who played Dr. Miles Cavanaugh on the show.

[DRW50]

I think you also have Daniel J Travanti right before Joel.

[Broderick]

Seems like a good way to introduce the show to ABC audiences, if they hadn't seen Edge before.  

[Vee]

What a fascinating gift this special was - we've all heard about it for so long. It's also, like many soap surprises lately such as the revival of Neighbours on Amazon Prime, very instructive re: how soap is put together. Slesar and co. use several narrative devices - Geraldine's coma dreams, Kevin Jamison's exposition to the doctor and most skillfully the Faraday custody trial - to recap major ongoing plotlines for a new audience on a new network. It's impressive work.

They waste zero time with Nicole; this was what, her second day back and her memory immediately returns lol? I didn't realize Lois Kibbee was almost fired as part of this storyline; was it the network move that made them hold onto her and try to get Maeve McGuire back?

I also didn't realize that Adam and Nicole must have had some sort of night together again soon after she returned, despite his relationship with Brandy Henderson, for her to be pregnant early the following year. (ETA: Never mind, I misread the dates; seems that episode was from all the way in '77!) Wasn't May allegedly angry they ended Adam and Brandy, and did that contribute to his brutal exit over a year later? And WEHT Phoebe Jamison, or Tracy and Danny, etc.

Nice to see Linda Cook from LOV as Laurie.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Vee

[DRW50]

@Vee Now that you mention it, it is impressive how much they manage to move over without any real awkwardness. The use of flashbacks with Nicole and Adam in particular does a lot to help avoid potential stiltedness. (and I'm glad they did them as this is presumably the only reason those scenes now exist) 

Phoebe is murdered the next year. I am not sure what happens with Danny and Tracy. 

Kevin seems like such a tragic character, who tried to do the right thing, repeatedly, and paid for it with his life. Most of that material being lost makes it more difficult to understand the levels of Geraldine's loathing of Raven, because even though Raven is betraying Logan (her replacement replacement son), her behavior isn't as horrible as it seemed to be with how she had treated Kevin. I wonder if Slesar decided to tone down the character by that point or if it just reads worse on the page than it played out onscreen. I wish more of Kevin was around as he has that '70s offbeat quality for leading men that I appreciate. 

[Vee]

I was just thinking that. We've all heard of those scenes too but this is an opportunity to see them. Pieces of them also recur in some of Gabet's other wonderful uploads from spring of '77 - the typically baroque, abstract dream sequences Slesar adds to Nicole's dreams of Claude Revenant's island, where she seems to overlay an old-style pirate ship on the sea and an island native with a machete (complete with kooky Chromakey FX) onto her memories of the explosion and her abduction.

I think the other younger Nicoles have their merits, particularly Lisa Sloan but they just don't have the stature or cosmopolitan vibe of McGuire. They feel like her younger sister, even if I like them with Joel Crothers. I don't know why they thought such a major shift would work, but I guess the other Nicoles did remain popular with Miles for almost another decade. I've always been curious to see if any material with McGuire and Crothers is available.

I do remember seeing Kevin in some other old episodes but I can't recall for the life of me when. His story with Raven has always sounded harrowing, but I've actually seen little of Raven period as I have mostly watched EON material where she's not present or in the episode. My long, long binge of the Nola Madison saga is leading up to her return though.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Vee

[Khan]

Yes.

[China Jones]

Wasn't that arc great? I remember EON hyping the fact that the show had secured screen star Kim Hunter for the role of Nola. (I was young at the time, so I was unfamiliar with Ms. Hunter's work.) I really enjoyed Nola and Owen as well as Page and Brian. 

[robbwolff]

I think Danny and Tracy are written out in 1977 along with Johnny and Laurie. Tracy’s call girl past is explored in 1976 when her former madam Mrs. Yost and fellow prostitute Inez Johnson appear. For a while they toyed with an attraction between Phoebe and hunky psychiatrist Chris Neely but Phoebe is murdered by Dr. Clay Jordan in late 1976. I absolutely loved the story about Nicole, which doesn’t end until February 1977. I was 12 when Edge moved to ABC in 1975. Mom was a fan from the CBS days and we had watched Somerset at 4 PM in the New York market. When Edge moved, she followed it to ABC and I immediately got hooked.

[danfling]

I had never liked the character of Tracy or (especially) the actress.   I do remember, though, that Tracy and Danny did not leave the show together.   Tracy left Monticello first.  I seem to remember that Danny rejected her after her behavior with Noel became known.

Johnny left town also, and I seem to think that Laurie Ann was committed to a mental institution.   Johnny left with their son (Mike's grandson), and that is a character who could have been used in the show later (but was another character that soap opera writers seem to forget).

Phoebe was indeed murdered, and I think that her death scene was quite well acted!  I did not want Kevin to lose Phoebe to Dr. Chris Neely, but I really liked the character of Dr. Neely and regret that he was on the show for such a short period.

Kevin moved on to Raven (her first marriage and his second).  Raven was not faithful to Kevin, and the couple eventually divorced.   Jaime was not the son of Kevin, but it (at first) was assumed by all that he was.   His name comes from Kevin's relative (the first one on The Edge of Night) Julie Jamison 

Kevin borrowed a car from some other character (maybe Draper) and was killed in a crash.   Initially, the people in Monticello had thought that it was Draper (or whoever had lent the car to Kevin) who had been killed.

And, oddly, both Danny and Kevin were almost connected to my all-time favorite character on the show, Deborah Saxon (the step-daughter of Geraldine).

When Deborah was first introduced on the show, Danny had begun working for her father (Antony).  Maybe he wanted her to link with Danny, or maybe he was opposed to such a pairing.   (I cannot remember because I was a senior in college and trying to complete my work.   Therefore, there was little time to watch my favorite show at the time.)

But, Danny decided to leave town rather suddenly (maybe it was said that he and Tracy were trying to reconcile), and it was then that the character of Beau Richardson was introduced.  Antony had told Danny that there were only three people who had elevated to his position (Beau, Rainey, and then Danny).  One should remember that Deborah at the time was being written as a spoiled vixen.

And, oddly enough, Kevin and Deborah had both been living in the Whitney mansion after his separation and divorce from Raven.  One of his very last scenes was a scene with Deborah in which it looked as though they were about to enter a romance and that they were attracted to one another.    It was then that Kevin drove away and was later killed.

I thought that was a very odd ending for the character.

 

 

 

 

[China Jones]

I do remember that Laurie Ann, after she returned home for the show's final Christmas, asked her parents to help her locate her son so that she could reconnect with him. But yes, he could have been utilized all those years that Laurie Ann was institutionalized.

[DRW50]

I'm still pleasantly surprised that the show remembered Laurie after it had ignored so much of its past. I wonder just why that happened. I wish they had also remembered Timmy Faraday.

[robbwolff]

From reading the synopses on the Edge homepage, Danny left Tracy after learning she was unable to have children because of having a number of abortions. Danny got involved with Tony Saxon and Beau Richardson in 1976 when he became manager of the Ace of Clubs. Beau was murdered around April 1, 1977 and that’s when Inez Johnson and Mrs. Yost appeared. Inez had implicated Mike Karr in Beau’s murder. Tracy, who had flirtations with Chris Neely and Steve Guthrie, went undercover and moved in with Mrs. Yost to prove Inez was lying. Tracy and Danny reconciled in August 1977 after Danny learned of Tracy’s actions. The synopses don’t mention when they left (a few are missing), but Tracy is last mentioned in the October 1977 synopses.

[Broderick]

My recollection is Raven was in the process of leaving Kevin and was claiming she'd fly to London to stay with Nadine & Ansel.  Kevin planned to stop her at the airport.  Draper Scott threw Kevin his car keys.  April, meanwhile, had one of her premonition/dreams of Draper's car crashing, and sure enough Draper's car had driven off the highway.  But it was Kevin Jamison in the car instead of Draper, and Kevin had died.  

I don't recall Geraldine ever really "loathing" Raven.  She was righteously indignant with Raven plenty of times.  When Kevin was killed, Raven threw herself a pity party and made herself the center of attention; Geraldine lost it with her at that moment, because Geraldine was grieving for Kevin and saw Raven more as the REASON for Kevin's death, rather than a "victim" of Kevin's death.  Later, when Raven tried to make herself the sole custodian parent of Jamey Swift, Geraldine got fed-up with her again.  Geraldine thought Raven was making the decision out of spite for Logan Swift, but actually Raven was trying to get her hands on Nadine Scott's money, as the funds were scheduled to pass to the custodial parent of Jamey.  Raven also did some shenanigans to turn Nadine against Geraldine Saxon, and Geraldine was pretty fed-up about that.  But by the time the dust settled, Raven did the noble deed of saving April Scott's life, and Geraldine offered Raven the opportunity to move out of her grungy apartment and into Geraldine's hotel suite, which of course enabled Raven to meet Schuyler Whitney.    

[Matt Powers]

The Edge of Night is such a unique soap, in that, it seems to me from watching the 80’s run, the show only has about 8 “core” characters. The supporting characters are brought in for certain stories and are dropped as soon as the story concludes.