ALL: What are your lost soap media "holy grails" for 2025?

[Maxim]

@Contessa Donatella The Joan Crawford Episodes!!!!!!!!! Our dream! 

[Forever8]

More episodes of the British soap Family Affairs (1997-2005) to surface online. Because even though some are spread out online, I wish there were more, especially from 1997-2003, were available.

Anything pre-1979 from all soaps.

More episodes of Loving (1983-1995) that haven't been uploaded.

 

[BoldRestless]

Anyone else see this thread bumped and always open it with anticipation that someone has replied with "I have all that stuff, here's the link!"

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[DRW50]

I'd like to see more of Family Affairs as well. A few popped up last year but so many are still not around.

Only audio of one is available. A shame.

[Maxim]

Absolute shame. This moment has been talked about so much, portrayed in movies and tv-shows... it would be soooo interesting to see it without the prism of someone else's imagination...  I'm sure she was not as bad as they show her in the Mommie dearest movie...  

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[Contessa Donatella]

Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think of it before but to see Joan Crawford on THE SECRET STORM, what an idea, and, yet another of those specific moments in soap history that it's such a special kind of tragedy that just dam*it why doesn't the visual exist?!! Does the soap universe just not want us to have nice things?! 

I've thought of another Bill Bell/DAYS storyline that I would put on my list. It's obvious, though, Mike Horton's paternity reveal & the aftermath. I DO NOT want to see the beginning of that s/l, where Bill rapes Laura ever again under any circumstances. It was one of the hardest things to sit through as a teen, in the room with my mother. 

[Forever8]

I love when we speak things into existence. Someone uploaded an episode from 1997. 

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[Paul Raven]

As well as new episodes surfacing, I hope we get more scripts/summaries and articles from the 60's and 70's.

French Fan's CBS summaries and Jason47's ratings info have been fantastic.

[DRW50]

@Forever8 Thanks for letting us know! Love it. 

[Paul Raven]

Slightly different, but I'd like to see some actors/writers/producers from past shows actually spill some tea about what went down.

We have BTS gossip, mostly unsubstantiated. And most soap actors books have been puff pieces.

Let's hear about the BTS drama from those that were there.

[Wilsoky]

If vintage episodes of any soap did somehow show up on streaming, would the actors/writers have to be paid residuals? I'm thinking that is a big reason we haven't seen it..

[DRW50]

That would be nice. What the Locher Room would have been in another world.

That's a good question. I'd guess music rights are the bigger issue. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I highly doubt that is a factor. The regs about that were very different way back when, changed gradually over time. So, BITD, those people might get something small or nothing. Even now actors talk about getting checks that are hilarious.

The costs, which are considerable, would largely come from the digitizing itself, along with whatever else would go into curating, whether that would be title cards, or organizing them to stream perhaps in storyline rather than just chronological & then, all of those episodes have to be on servers. Because the number of episodes involved is large, then that's a heckuva lot of servers.

The shows with fewer episodes have an advantage in that way.

[Maxim]

If only something like... when AOL made so many early 1980s soaps (EON from 1979!) available... happened again. It clearly shows that somewhere these episodes are sitting and rotting away. They must exist. Maybe not all of them, but more must be available.

As I recall AOL made 1980-1981 AW episodes available in pristine quality! About 300 something episodes.

I think they uploaded Edge of night - Mid 1979 to late 1980. again... Something like 300 episodes or something. BTW, pretty much 99 percent of Mid 1979 to final episode is uploaded on youtube by a fan! That's like 1500+ episodes! 

As I recall AOL also uploaded Search for tomorrow episodes - from 1984 to 1986... if I'm correct.

Someone add more if they knew about them.

AH! And Texas - the first 300+ episodes as I recall. All of this is pretty much available on youtube. ALL OF IT.

So I would literally DIE if another project like this one happened.

 

[Contessa Donatella]

When Roger Newcomb curated PGP Special Classic Episodes of ATWT & GL for P&G, he said that even then with those episodes, music rights was an issue. In at least a few instances they had to drop a choice & go with another choice.

USA network played both EON & SFT in reruns. 

BET played GENERATIONS after its conclusion several times.

@MaximGenerally, people have the hope that there's better quality in existence than what is typically found on YouTube.