Jump to content

Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)


cct

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Well, I had always heard that Edge of Night, or EON, was different from other soaps, what with the focus on mysteries and its popularity with males. So I've been checking it out, and I am truly hooked. I usually watch two or three an evening, as they only run for twenty minutes. Right now, Draper Scott/Kirk Michaels has amnesia and is recovering in the bed of Emily Gault while back in town, Raven Swift is trying desperately to get her child back. From what I understand, what I'm watching first aired in the spring of 1980. Although there is a little too much repetition for my liking (which I probably wouldn't mind if I weren't watching back-to-back, but day-to-day), I have thoroughly enjoyed the Mansion of the Damned and the train wreck. Looking forward to what I think will be something about a carousel, as Crazy-Dream April (as I've come to know her) has been tossing and turning in her sleep again. B)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 2.2k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • Members

It's interesting you praise Margo McKenna because at the time,a respected soap journalist(was it John Kelly Genovese?)slammed her as the worst actress on the show!

She previously played Betsy on Love of Life and was one of the first performers to move to another show when LOL was cancelled.

I think she later had a small role on ATWT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

This gets my vote for the best soap of all time. Its a shame aol took off the first 100 or 200 episodes already with the drug cult, Mansion of the Damned and Nola vs Deborah and Miles, but I am starting again after a break and Draper's trial was really good, and just watching the fascinating explanation for who killed Margo Dorn just shows you how Henry Slesar assumed his audience was intelligent and not morons. Today's murder mysteries tend to be clueless nonsense with the motive being senseless insanity. Mr Slesar crafted a well thought out scenario with multiple suspects--and did it time and time again.

Kim Hunter was brilliant as Nola. Her character was so multi faceted being old, alcoholic, vain, wallowing in self-pity, being cheated on by her husband and desperate to hold him, and her secret about her son and step daughter. It was just a great role.

And then beside the emphasis on crime, it was "soapy" to the max at times. The episode where Draper tells April he has to go for sentencing just a day after the birth of their baby, with that music and the hammy soap-atrics---brilliant stuff.

I can see why this show would appeal to men also.

Edited by quartermainefan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Although Henry Slesar was primarily a mystery writer,he was also able to play up the emotional'soapy'aspect of the plots.

I remember reading that Gloria Monty simply took the Edge formula of ongoing mystery/action stories and ran with it,creating much publicity,while Edge died in the ratings and was cancelled - never really acknowledged for originating it and doing it better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

EON had good ratings back on CBS but they fiddled with the time and that was that. Once Slesar came in the show lost some of its intelligence. You watch these episodes and there is no trace of supercoupling or who is supposed to be the star and who is more important and all that. By the time Schuler and Raven and Jodi and Preacher consume the show it is just a shell of its self.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Speaking of Sharon Gabet, I'm noticing, as I did then, that she smirks a lot, or lets this little grin cross her face, even when the scenes are supposed to be angry or serious. I always wondered if it's only to play Raven in that coquettish way, as something of a "cat who swallowed the canary" or as a gameplayer (like, okay, you got me there but I'm gonna get you back kinda smirky smile) or if it's just Gabet having fun with the scenes. Don't get me wrong, she was one of my favorites, but when she grins like that in between yelling at somebody or getting her game thwarted, I wonder if I'm watching Raven or Sharon.

Edited by applcin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Oh...I'm not sure which, but that grin is what makes me love her. I like to think it's the way she is playing Raven, and it so works. I haven't seen her on anything else to be able to tell what's what or who's who. The grin is part of the va-va-va-voom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

It was a typo. I meant when he left and was replaced. Supposedly they let him go because the show was too intelligent for the viewers and the network wanted it dumbed down.

About Raven: she was ok, your typical soap vixenish character, but the show became a showpiece for her, Schuyler, Jody and her BF whereas it was previous to that a showpiece for well written stories no matter who they starred.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • Members

It's just speculation, but I doubt the original Molly would've been right for the character when she started to become fully involved with Montecello. The orignal Molly was very rigid and patrician. The 2nd Molly was much more maternal when it comes to Emily which is definitely played up later on as they very much do have a surrogate mother/daughter relationship. Once you see more episodes with Molly more involved, you'll see how the original Molly just wouldn't have been right for the role.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

And I think that was ABC's doing. They wanted more of a serial with the supercouple format where it was the couples that solved the mysteries, not necessarily complex characters like Adam Drake. As it was, it wasn't bad at all because Larkin Malloy and Sharon Gabet had tremendous chemistry and Lois Kibbee played well off both of them. Lori Loughlin was downright gorgeous (she still is, too -- the years have been VERY kind to her), and she had great chemistry with Charles Flohe. Once Lori left, it wasn't quite the same.

As for Slesar leaving, Lee Sheldon didn't get it at first. His pacing was very uneven (he'd often switch days in mid-episode, which is usually a daytime no-no) and he was having trouble grasping the daytime formula. Toward the end of Edge's run, he started to sharpen up big-time, but by then it was too late.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • I was talking about 1986, but the glimpses of 1982 are about the same. 
    • I skimmed some of the 1982 synopses; Steve was planning on an opening an office in Finland, and I think Jim went there as part of the preparation. That probably was a big issue; AW had already gone to San Diego that year, with Rachel/Steve/Mitch. And to upstate NY with Pete and Diana. I wonder if upstate was as expensive lol  AW in 1982 has always fascinated me, because of how messy it was 
    • That makes sense. What a messy time for the show. And any changes they made were mostly for the worse.
    • The transition from Neal to Adam was very abrupt, and to be honest my theory is that the character of Neal was designed so that we think he is super shady but then it turns out that he was on the side of good all along so Neal could have seamlessly become a hero of the BCPD with no need for Adam. I don't know whether Robert Lupone was hired on a short contract or if he was fired from a longer-term contract because they decided they wanted someone who was more of a leading man type, but I can imagine a scenario where Charles Grant did both the undercover Egyptian treasure/flirt with Victoria and the straighter-arrow day to day police investigation. But in my imagined scenario the MJ prostitution plotline probably doesn't exist and instead he probably continues a relationship with Victoria. The story seems very odd to me. I assume that David Canary would have been included only because a plotline where Steve is going to Finland in which only Rachel is seen in actual Finland seems unlikely. The synopses explicitly mention that Alice can't go with Steve but would whoever was playing Alice at that time have had the kind of clout to get the remote cancelled? It also strikes me as unlikely that production would have approved the expensive location shoot and *then* cancelled it only because of jealousy. It seems more likely that they rejected it because of the expense but then the jealousy part got added to the gossip speculatively, possibly because while it was being worked out they justified not including more castmembers because of the expense. 
    • My comment has nothing to do with cast resentment, but does relate to the Finland location shoot: It may be a coincidence, but Jim Matthews died in Finland in 1982.  Hugh Marlowe's final episode was in April 1982, but the character probably didn't die untll May or June. (I'm unable to find the character's date of death, only the date of Marlowe's final episode). SInce Jim and Rachel had very little interaction after around 1975, it is unlikely Jim's death in Finland had any connection to Rachel's potential visit, but the choice to have Jim die in that location at that time is a head-scratcher.  I'm sure the writers sent Jim on an extended trip (and off-screen) because of Marlowe's illness.  But Finland seems like a strange choice considering the (then) recently cancelled location shoot.  
    • I totally understand your sloths concern about it and I agree with you. Let’s hope the show plays it’s cards right.    Further comments about the last few episodes: - I liked that one of the attendees was filming the scene. That’s realistic. I wonder if the writers will follow up with that.  - Martin and Smitty trying to drag Leslie out was very heteronormative, so perfectly in line with them two as characters lol.    As for the future: it’s obvious the Duprees will come to accept Eva one way or another, but the rivalry with Kay should be here for the long term   On the topic of acting: the only bad actors I’m seeing are Ted and Derek. Tomas hasn’t proven to be either good or bad, so far, but he’s certainly mediocre and uncharismatic. He sucks the energy out of the scenes and I don’t see any couple of women ever vying for him. 
    • I’m trying to think which actors VW were working with at the time, and none of them had been there for a while. Even like Mac and Ada didn’t have that big of a part in Rachel’s storyline.  And Jamie was involved with all that movie stuff.
    • Brooke did ads before ATWT too. That probably helped get her the job. After ATWT she seemed to branch more into hosting, along with ads.  I think I saw Kelley in an ad or two, but you're right she wasn't on as much. 
    •   Thanks for sharing these. I wonder if Charles might have been in the running for Adam. I know Preacher was a bit of a bad boy at times on EON, but Neal seemed to be a step down, and Robert Lupone had played a similar part on AMC. Given the huge cast turnover at this point I wonder who thought they had been there long enough to go.  Laura Malone/Chris Rich would get a remote within the next year. 
    • Interesting.  It seems to allude to that statement that Warren Burton made around that time about some AW actors getting special treatment.  I wonder who was resentful about not getting to go. 
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy