The Edge of Night is an American mystery crime drama television series and soap opera, created by Irving Vendig and produced by Procter & Gamble Productions.

[4] Unlike Perry Mason, whose adventures took place in Southern California, the daytime series was set in the fictional city of Monticello, located in the Midwestern United States.

The police, district attorneys, and medical examiners of fictional Monticello, United States, dealt with a steady onslaught of gangsters, drug dealers, blackmailers, cultists, international spies, corrupt politicians, psychopaths, and murderous debutantes, while at the same time coping with more usual soap opera problems like courtship, marriage, divorce, child custody battles, and amnesia.

The show's particular focus on crime was recognized in 1980, when, in honor of its 25 years on the air, The Edge of Night was given a special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.

The Edge of Night had more prominent male characters than most soap operas, and included genuine humor in its scripts to balance the heaviness of the storylines.

Among the show's cast members who appeared on The Edge of Night early in their careers and later gained fame were Mariann Aalda, Leah Ayres, Conrad Bain, David Birney, Dixie Carter, Kate Capshaw, Philip Casnoff, Thom Christopher, Margaret Colin, James Coco, Jacqueline Courtney, John Cullum, Marcia Cross, Irene Dailey, Frances Fisher, Jennifer Joan Taylor, Lucy Lee Flippin, David Froman, Penny Fuller, Scott Glenn, Sam Groom, Don Hastings, Patrick Horgan, Earle Hyman, Željko Ivanek, Peter Kastner, Lori Loughlin, Bill Macy, Nancy Marchand, Kiel Martin, Doug McKeon, Julianne Moore, John Allen Nelson, Barry Newman, Bebe Neuwirth, Christopher Norris, Antony Ponzini, Lawrence Pressman, Tony Roberts, Reva Rose, Mark Rydell, Dolph Sweet, Millee Taggart, Holland Taylor, Richard Thomas, John Travolta, Ann Wedgeworth and Jacklyn Zeman.

Among the show's guest stars were Willie Aames, Amanda Blake, Dick Cavett, Nancy Coleman, Professor Irwin Corey, Selma Diamond, James Douglas, Alfred Drake, John Fiedler, Betty Guarde, Rita Gam, Eva Gabor, Jack Gilford, Frank Gorshin, Farley Granger, Cynthia Gregory, Micki Grant, Lisa Howard, Kim Hunter, Leon Janney, Rita Jenrette, Arch Johnson, Larry King, Nancy Marchand, Ed Marinaro, Donald May, Sam McMurray, James Mitchell, Meg Myles, Tom Nardini, Wade Nichols, Peaches and Herb, Minerva Pious, Anne Revere, Rosemary Rice, Hugh Reilly, Wallace Shawn, Pat Stanley, Shirley Stoler, Elaine Stritch, Jane White, Ann Williams, and Jerry Zaks.

In the early years of the show, Sara's younger brother, Jack (Don Hastings), was drawn into the criminal world by corrupt uncle Harry Lane (Lauren Gilbert).

Their happiness was short-lived when Sara was written out of the show, killed as she saved the life of their daughter Laurie Ann, who ran into the street into the path of an automobile.

(Debbie was struck dumb by the incident and was receiving in-patient therapy; while Stephanie unwittingly compounded the problem by calling her "Karen," thus making it clear she wished it had been the other twin who had survived.)

In a classic Perry Mason-like climax, Debbie was called to testify at Nicole's trial; and when asked on the stand if the woman who killed her mother was in court, she said "Yes.

Another major character introduced in the later years was Assistant District attorney Draper Scott (Tony Craig), who started out working alongside Brandy Henderson and tried to date her but she was still in love with Adam Drake.

Another notable character was Charlotte "Raven" Alexander Jamison Swift Whitney (Juanin Clay, then Sharon Gabet), a duplicitous coquette who became more stable and faithful in the latter years.

Uniquely among daytime dramas at the time, The Edge of Night finished its run with an ominous (and intentional) cliffhanger, revealing that an old enemy—Louis Van Dine, who had supposedly been sent to the state penitentiary—had returned to settle some scores, and none of the main protagonists were safe.

The show's theme plays over the dialogue, masking Karr's words, but the audience is left to know that the story of Monticello continues onward, albeit off the air.

Through the 1960s, the show continued to gain popularity; it consistently ranked as one of the top six rated soap operas, alongside the rest of CBS' daytime lineup.

At one point, the audience for The Edge of Night was estimated to be more than 50% male, largely due to the show's crime format and its late start time of 4:30 p.m. (3:30 Central).

On July 1, 1963, the show was moved to the 3:30/2:30 time period after CBS gave the 4:30/3:30 slot back to its affiliates, primarily used by them for children's programs, local or syndicated.

Since CBS decided against taking the 1 p.m. slot from the affiliates, and the network did not intend to move As the World Turns from its 1:30 p.m. slot, this made the low-rated Edge of Night expendable, and CBS told Procter & Gamble that it would not be renewing the series (although the network conceivably could have returned the soap to late afternoons, keeping control of the 50% male audience it had previously before the move to 2:30 p.m.).

This episode picked up where CBS had left off the previous Friday, with Geraldine Whitney still in a coma after having been pushed down a flight of stairs in a murder attempt by her daughter-in-law Tiffany's second husband, Noel Douglas' girlfriend Tracy Dallas.

The final scene of that day's episode was a climax in which Serena Faraday, in her "Josie" split personality, shot and killed her husband on the steps of the courthouse.

At first, the show's overall ratings declined because fewer homes had access to it; this happened because many ABC affiliates had opted to run local or syndicated programming in the 4:00/3:00 slot, instead of the network feed, for many years and decided not to abandon the practice.

Nevertheless, The Edge of Night was typically either first (or a close second) in its timeslot in markets where the local ABC station cleared it at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time); this was due mainly to the weakness of competing programs on CBS and NBC.

Thus, on October 26, 1984, ABC and Procter & Gamble made a joint announcement that the final telecast of Edge of Night (whose title had been shortened to three words) would take place on December 28 of that year.

NBC had done this in 1977, while CBS, which programmed the 4:00 p.m. time slot with Body Language when The Edge of Night left the air, followed suit in September 1986 after canceling Press Your Luck a month prior.

The most significant impact occurred in the New York City market, where the cancellation of The Edge of Night created an opening on ABC's East Coast flagship, WABC-TV.

before its 5 p.m. newscast, WABC filled the entire hour with The Oprah Winfrey Show (also distributed by King World, which came to dominate the 4 p.m. timeslot in New York and many other markets).

to 7 p.m., pushing ABC's broadcast of World News Tonight ahead by a half-hour and reducing the length of its 6 p.m. newscast to 30 minutes; locally, this move would later repeat itself at WNBC and WCBS-TV, and eventually at network affiliates in many other markets where such scheduling patterns are now considered standard practice.

[10][11] As of 2021, the 4 p.m. time slot is now largely filled by local newscasts on most major network affiliates, including most of ABC's owned-and-operated stations, since the conclusion of Oprah in 2011.

From August 2006[13] to January 2009,[14] Procter & Gamble made several of its classic soap operas available, a few episodes at a time, through AOL Video Service, downloadable free of charge.