Tuesday, August 7, 2012

50 Greatest Soap Couples: #17 Sky & Raven From THE EDGE OF NIGHT

COUPLE: Schuyler Whitney & Raven Swift
SHOW: THE EDGE OF NIGHT
RANK: 17
PLAYED BY:
Sky: Larkin Malloy
Raven: Sharon Gabet
YEARS: 1980-1984 (including Jefferson Brown)

STORY:
Sky and Raven were an explosive duo that met in 1980 after Sky had survived a plane crash and moved to Monticello.  Sky was Geraldine Whitney's nephew who won Raven's heart, ultimately leading to their wedding.  But it wasn't happily ever after for the couple as Raven realized Sky had been a patient of plastic surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Bryson, and was actually an impostor named Jefferson Brown!

Jefferson went to great lengths to keep his identity hidden including killing Gunther, who was actually his twin, Bruno (David Froman, who also played a dual returning later as the real Gunther). The storyline eventually climaxed during a location shoot in the Swiss Alps where Jefferson was killed while attempting to throw Raven off a cliff.  Raven was a wealthy widow until the real Schuyler Whitney came to town.  Raven and Sky immediately clashed but eventually fell in love "again".  Raven married the real Sky but they lost the Whitney fortune and were penniless.  Much mystery and adventure followed as they battled assassins over their secret plastics formula, and Raven fought for her survival as she was convicted of murdering her ex-husband, Logan.  When the show ended its run in 1984 Raven and Sky were together and happy.

IMPACT:
THE EDGE OF NIGHT struck gold with the pairing of Malloy and Gabet, two of the best actor's in soap opera history (see our critics' lists below).  Fans responded to their chemistry and they became fan favorites.

Gabet was nominated for two Emmy Awards for her work in the Sky/Raven storyline, with Malloy receiving one nomination.

When EDGE was canceled Malloy and Gabet become hot commodities for the remaining daytime soaps.  Malloy started at GUIDING LIGHT before EDGE even wrapped.  Gabet weighed her options and chose a role in ANOTHER WORLD that was more of a departure from Raven than the roles other soaps were offering.

From Patrick Erwin (A THOUSAND OTHER WORLDS): They were an unusual, almost Gothic couple – in retrospect, their brooding, mysterious romance seems almost Gomez and Morticia Addams- like. Their escapades were completely over the top. But the chemistry that Sky and Raven had was one of the best things about the final years of EDGE.

CLASSIC CLIPS:
Sky and Raven highlights (1984)
The final act of THE EDGE OF NIGHT (1984)
Sharon Gabet classic clips
Larkin Malloy classic clips

Share your thoughts on Sky and Raven in our Comments section below or on our message board.

RELATED:
- 50 Greatest Soap Opera Actors: The Complete List
- 50 Greatest Soap Opera Actresses: The Complete List
- THE COMPLETE LIST: 25 Biggest Blunders In Daytime Soap Opera History

7 comments:

  1. Wow! I was hoping that “Edge of Night” would be represented on this list, but I never expected its couple to rank so high. I also didn't even consider Skye and Raven as the representative couple. I was thinking it might be Adam and Nicole.

    The show wasn't really about or known for its couples, so the pickins was kinda slim. While it had memorable couples – Draper and April, Mike and Nancy, Miles and Nicole, Jody and Preacher (though I much preferred Jody and Gavin) – none of them had the impact on the genre like others on this list did.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Using my 20/20 hindsight, I am impressed that Gabet and Malloy were nominated for Emmys for these roles.

    "Edge of Night" was not the most popular soap opera at the time. Shoot, it didn't even air in a lot of markets, and, in some, it aired in a weird time slot. Plus, there were more daytime dramas on the air, thus, more competition in all Emmy categories.

    Impressive indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Raven was a favorite character of mine. She seemed to be the EoN's Erica Kane but with much more of an edge (Pardon the pun.). However, the Skye and Raven coupling and story, when Skye was really Jefferson Brown, was never a favorite of mine. That “Skye” was horrid and unlikable, and the story was too convoluted for my tastes.

    I mean, Jefferson Brown was Skye, but he had plastic surgery under the name of Jim Dedrickson. Then the real Jim Dedrickson came to town. Skye had previously romanced Martine, who came to town. Jefferson Brown as Jim had previously romanced Valerie, who came to town. The Bryson Clinic, where Brown got his surgery, was tied to April and Draper's drama with Emily, as well as Nancy's kidnapping. That beefy, hunky Damian Tyler came to town with a vendetta against Jefferson Brown (I think.). Gunther was really Bruno.

    There was all this setup for what I expected to be a big, big umbrella story with an amazing climax, but it didn't go that way. It seemed to all peter out when Jefferson Brown was shot on the ski slopes. I don't even remember who fired the fatal shot.

    Then, most of the other characters I mentioned seemed to drift until they drifted right off the show. I suspected then and still do today that the story was either being made up as they went along or that it had to be extensively rewritten for whatever reasons. It wasn't nearly as tight as so many of the show's past, excellent stories. The worst part for me was when that lovable character Bobbie Gerard was murdered by Jefferson Brown.

    I did, however, like the real, heroic, likable Skye. I enjoyed how he and Raven came together after initally being at odds with each other. They did have great chemistry.

    It was cool how the writers gave them good story (most of the time) that didn't involve them breaking up and making up over and over. They pretty much stuck together despite numerous outside influences. I kinda liked them as daytime's Jonathan and Jennifer Hart.

    One of my favorite stories/scenes of theirs was late in the show's run. Skye had blackmail sex with Alicia Van Dine, who promised to help exonerate Raven of Logan's murder in exchange for a roll in the hay. After doing the deed, Skye went home and broke down in Raven's arms on the stairs of the Whitney mansion.

    I'm so pleased to see EON, still my most favorite soap opera, here. I think it's a testament to the show that, decades after its demise, it still has a pretty solid place in soap opera history.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I LOVED them!!! They were sooo good together. Edge was so good when Henry Slesar wrote it, but Raven and Sky were reason enough to watch by themselves. I still miss them and Edge. What a GREAT soap!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I enjoyed the couple in the beginning but our ABC station starting moving the EON all around in what time it was being shown. It consistiently was shown at 11AM from the debut in '75, follow by Ryan's Hope, but then in '81 started showing it at 1030AM and by '82 moved it again and putting it at 9am, and the whole doppleganger story was to long in story...lost interest and stopped watching EON. The best years of EON was on CBS at 3pm Forever! EON did have bright spots afterwards but something was amiss because of the new network, I feel. In the beginning it was good, and I loved Raven! What a good actress! Like a Kim Zimmer quality, she could play anything and everything, from heavy drama to comedy to romanctic leading lady...loved her!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I loved the CBS years, too. Even as a kid, I loved Adam and Nicole. The ABC years were good for the most part, until HS was replaced. Edge was the kind of soap that was ahead of its time in relation to other soaps and prime time series (like CSI, etc.) Edge (or EON, if you prefer)featured a psychic at one time in the 1970s but it also featured Marcia Cross (from DH) as a forensic artist who used the skulls of victims to try to reconstruct their faces and identify them. Edge is/was my favorite soap of all-time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Raven and Sky were also interesting in terms of their place in both EON and soap history. Neither character had a specialization which was part of their glamor. EON had been a workplace soap and everybody had a job; cop, lawyer, journalist, murderous thug, everyone played a part. But Raven and Sky were perfect for 80's storytelling because they had no specialization so they could get involved in any type of wild adventure and it didn't need to be rooted in a workplace.

    However, this was also a time of booming budgets so a soap like EON could build the Van Dyne (sp?) building and a new disco for every story.

    Today, Days and B&B's newest characters also have no specializations. Sami has worked in no specific job since 1992, and I am entirely unsure of Steffy's talents. But, in many ways it feels old fashioned because soaps don't have the budgets to do 80's era stories. It is cheaper to everyone meet at a hospital or a courtroom. Thus, perhaps some of these younger soap characters need to get a job in order to open the possibilities of more modern soap tales.

    ReplyDelete