In the Villains thread, Khan made me think of this re: The Edge of Night, and someone on another board suggested this remedy for lost Doctor Who episodes. It sucks that we’ll never experience the greatness of much of Henry Slesar’s work on screen, with the bulk of it (most of the CBS era) likely irrevocably lost. (And in the case of things like DW, some early episodes are marred by crappy production values anyway.) 

 

If surviving episodes can’t be found (but scripts are indeed available), is it possible or feasible to reshoot these old soap stories with great, modern-day production values and great actors, possibly for streaming?  I don’t know what the rights issues would be, but The Edge of Night would be an interesting case for reshooting in the 21st century, as it was thought to be particularly ahead of its time. (Plus period stuff is of particular interest these days.) But it could work for other lost soaps as well. 

 

No need to reboot or reimagine the show, just use what already exists. Yes, original new stuff is great, but the work of singular masters deserves exposure too. 

Edited June 30, 20196 yr by Faulkner

I felt that when SoapNet was in business, that that particular network devote one night per week (probably Saturday) to performing old scripts (presuming that they could be located) of The Doctors (episdodes which were self-contined) produced in New York and cast with soap opera veterans whenever possible.

Also some of the shorter serials, such as Our Private World, Today Is Ours, Golden Windows, The Greatest Gift,  A Woman with a Past, Full Circle, and Ben Jarrod, Attorney at Law..

Edited July 4, 20196 yr by danfling
another thought

7 hours ago, danfling said:

I felt that when SoapNet was in business, that that particular network devote one night per week (probably Saturday) to performing old scripts (presuming that they could be located) of The Doctors (episdodes which were self-contined) produced in New York and cast with soap opera veterans whenever possible.

Also some of the shorter serials, such as Our Private World, Today Is Ours, Golden Windows, The Greatest Gift,  A Woman with a Past, Full Circle, and Ben Jarrod, Attorney at Law..

It’s sad that Soapnet failed. A concept like that, similar to how Jimmy Kimmel did live versions of Norman Lear sitcoms with new stars, could have been fun, but classic soap is just too niche. And perhaps even The Edge of Night, for all its complexity and richness, would be too G-rated for an audience trained to enjoy a level of depravity and darkness in its crime/mystery shows. And there’s the five-times-a-week, which could be just passé, even for a half-hour show like TEON. Things would have to be condensed and re-written to a point where it would need to be basically a rebooted show (with story by Henry Slesar). The more I think about it, the more it becomes a silly pipe dream. A bummer, but c’est la vie.

If a network or other entity wanted to produce new content, but minimize how much writers had to do this could probably work. Reusing old ideas and concepts is the in thing to do now. With that said I think the Edge of Night would succeed like this because crime and mystery drama is popular to an extent.

The question is: do those scripts even exist? 

I'm sure some do, thanks to writers archiving their scripts at universities and such over the years.

Yes, a number of writers donated their writings to libraries, as did some performers.

 

25 minutes ago, danfling said:

Yes, a number of writers donated their writings to libraries, as did some performers.

 

I see Bowling Green State has an incomplete collection on microfilm:

https://www.bgsu.edu/content/bgsu/en/library/pcl/Collections/soaps.html

If I am not mistaken, Capitol's story bible and a script was posted online. Just when I was gonna download it, the site went down. 😔