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

[DRW50]

I'm still hoping for the ski lift episode too. 

I never knew there was a bible for Reva or that Pam Long didn't want to cast Kim. No wonder they didn't get along.

L&F would be interesting.

I almost forgot about From These Roots. I don't think anything of that has ever appeared.

[soapfan770]

@DRW50 I did forget to mention to Loving as well I’m to this day surprised SoapNet never bothered to rerun the series but who knows. As much as I had fondly remembered 1992-94 from what I’ve seen doesn’t hold up as well, but I’m curious about 80’s Loving because so little is available and info is scarce.

[DRW50]

I am too. I suppose they didn't think it was popular enough. 

1994 is seen by many fans as a good period, but I haven't watched it all the way through.

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't think any fans knew this until Kim revealed it herself several years ago in a Locher Room zoom chat!! And, she was having fun with it & did it as a tease. First she dropped the bombshell that she'd not been Long's choice at all. Then she did NOT reveal who Long had wanted & left that hanging. Many of us left that afternoon beginning to try to figure it out. I know that I was intrigued. And also, later, it was gratifying to figure it out & then get it confirmed.

I'm not sure I would categorize them as not getting along. Yes, they had an odd relationship but that was because regularly they battled it out over what the character would or would not do, think & say. However, once they were done fighting, then they were like conspirators & collaborators who had such high opinions of themselves & their "other".

FROM THESE ROOTS and THE BRIGHTER DAY are two soaps where I love them dearly because of their epigrams?

"The microphones can't pick up any voices & soon the picture will fade. If, on occasion you think of us, we hope your memory will be a pleasant one." - last line, last episode of the soap THE BRIGHTER DAY 1954-1962.

"From these roots grow branch, leaf and flower, children of the sheltering earth, ripening into the tumult of the seasons--generation unto generation." - From These Roots epigram

 

 

[te.]

I'd love for Valley of the Dolls to show up in English. 

[te.]

Fox had made an initial commitment for 13 weeks of the show and were by all accounts about to go into full production and then... they just didn't. I suspect that since the 90s Fox soaps were waning at that point, they backed out at the last minute. 

[Paul Raven]

There is stuff out there-witness Ariane Munker posting 70's AW. I'm sure many other actors/directors etc have tapes.

I would love to see the final week of 77 GH and Gloria Monty's first week to see how the changes looked  onscreen.

At least one episode of Where The Heart Is, How To Survive A Marriage, Bright Promise and Return to Peyton Place.

[Contessa Donatella]

YES EXACTLY! In some ways its as if some odd phenomena is at play when during the 80s there is such abundance in primetime soaps but in the next decade, the 90s, no new primetime can succeed at all! What a difference a year makes, hmm?!

Her appearing & just laying out all of those was such an unexpected bonus!

WTHI 

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BP  RtPP  HTSAM ???? 

[te.]

Eh, Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 were successful. Depending on how willing you're to go with the "soap" label, you also have shows like Party of Five, Dawson's Creek and so on. 

But most of all - in the 90s the line between prime time soaps and "drama" seemed to blur further. Soaps were at one point the only ones that really did the endless continuation bit, but almost every drama started having soap-like elements like ER, Ally McBeal, Buffy etc.

[Contessa Donatella]

You're right. The Beverly Hills 90210 franchise did get going at that time. DAWSON definitely a soap. PO5, a family drama if there ever was one - and there were many. 

I was a huge fan of ALLY MCBEAL. Some of us got together online weekly, during & after the new episode would be aired!! We even met in person in Manhattan & of course my pedigree as a soap fan first & foremost is clear. And none of us thought of McBeal as a soap. 

 

[watson71]

Wonder if Robin Strasser ever saved any of her AW work as Rachel?

[Khan]

Yes (to the bolded part)!  I, too, would love to get my hands on a copy of Marland's TSS bible.  What little we know about it - a PA steel town setting; a smaller cast - sounds very intriguing.

[kalbir]

Another bible to add: Coming of Age.

[Khan]

Two more: "Celebration," and "Heart & Soul"/"Union Place."  Both by Claire Labine.

[Contessa Donatella]

And, as has already been said, some of us are interested in seeing the Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith pilot episode of 13 BOURBON STREET. Just seemed needing to be repeated. Is anyone here local to North Carolina? Michael Malone's papers are there, at Duke. And, a tape of that pilot episode is said to be among his papers.