The Edge of Night

"The Edge of Night" was without a doubt one of the best daytime soaps ever. Unlike other soaps, Edge focused on intelligent, complex mysteries fraught with irony, suspense, and edge-of-your seat action. The show's ensemble cast was probably the best in daytime history, supporting Edge's reputation a classy, well-written, and terrifically acted program. Sadly, after 28 years of superior programming, Edge was dropped in favor of higher-budget, more popular soaps, all of which in effect plagiarized Edge's plots, action, and individuality. Accept no susbstitutes: Edge was The Best!

An interesting fact about this show is that it had its origins in the Perry Mason radio show before it was a TV show.

The radio show ran from 1943 to 1955, five days a week, on the CBS radio network.

It was part soap opera and part detective story.

When the radio show moved, with most of the cast and the production staff, to TV, it was renamed Edge of Night.

The cast members were given new character names.

The Perry Mason character was dropped. On September 21, 1957, CBS aired a new show, Perry Mason, starring Raymond Burr.

I was fortunate enough to get a double serving of EON during summer break. When EON moved to ABC, the Baltimore affiliate aired the show at 4:00p.m. directly following GH. However, my hometown of Washington, DC would broadcast the same episode the next morning at 10:30 a.m. The quality of the Baltimore channel was clear when it was cloudy but otherwise snowy at best.

Murder mysteries were EON's forte and the one effect they did better than any other daytime drama was the quick fade to black. There was no slow resolve to black. The music would swell, then suddenly the screen goes black. I loved it!!!!!!

The character names were straight out of period pieces

Just to name a few: Adam Drake, Nicole Travis (Drake), April Cavanaugh, Preacher Emerson, Miles Cavanaugh, Margo Huntington Dorn, Elliot Dorn, and two of my favorites villains Molly Sherwood and Winter Austin.

My favorite Friday cliffhanger occurred at the WMON studios. Winter had reached wits end and decided to confront Nicole in the news studio. The mad chase lead to the catwalk and the overhead in the studio. They both wore a white button-up blouse and blue jeans. There hair were a similar honey hue. When the railing broke, one of the two flipped over the railing and fell face first onto the floor below.

It was awesome, but the kicker was, they waited until Tuesday to pick up the story. They sure don't make'em like they used to.

Sadly, they do not make Soaps like this one anymore. I was literally sick when it was cancelled. Edge of Night had it all, wonderfully written mysteries and suspense stories. Great characters and wonderful actors. This soap will be sorely missed for a long time. Edge of Night was special. It just had a rare combination of the right writers, actors, directors, even the right sets. The soap may be gone, but its memories will last a lifetime.

`The Edge of Night' was the consequential daytime drama of mystery, suspense, police detection and crime. For anyone who loved a good murder mystery, this was indeed the afternoon drama to watch. In most instances, you worried every week if lead attorney and crime stopper Mike Karr, his wife Nancy Pollock Karr, or daughter Laurie Ann, would vanish off the face of the earth or be murdered by a larger than life villain who was as well causing grief for Bill Marceau, the chief of police, and the very good citizens of Monticello. The romance between attorney Adam Drake, and socialite and often stalked Nicole Travis Stewart, started `The Edge of Night's' first real super couple and the dynamic twosome simply took our breaths away when they finally wedded in a handsome ceremony in the Karrs garden. It wasn't often that fans of `The Edge of Night' got treated to afternoon romance, bed-hopping and hen-peck husbandry similar to the scenery on most of the other daytime dramas...since `Edge's' important characters were simply too busy scheming about other relevant matters or solving `whodunnit' if `whodunnit' didn't kill them first.

The murder of fan favorite Adam Drake in 1977, was perhaps the show's biggest shocker.