Lost Episodes
Nightfall also has its
share of "lost" episodes, but not nearly on the same scale as
Doctor Who. The two stories which most frequently come up in
on-line discussions are "Dreamy" and "The Prize".
DREAMY (by Len Peterson)
This story became part of Nightfall's mythology thanks to this entry in a broadcast log compiled by Randy Minnehan and first posted to the Internet in November of 1995 by Kevin Hartnell:
For years fans have tried desperately to find recordings of "Dreamy" so they could complete their Nightfall collections, but it turns out that "Dreamy" was never a Nightfall episode to begin with. It was a 40-minute holiday special written by Len Peterson (one of Canada's most revered writers and a prolific contributor to Nightfall's first season), produced by Nightfall creator Bill Howell, and featuring many of the actors who regularly appeared on Nightfall. Douglas Campbell and Ruth Springford starred as Santa and Mrs. Claus. Chris Wiggins and Elva Mai Hoover were a pair of mean little elves named Ahh! and Ohh!. John Stocker was Dreamy, and Rosemary Radcliffe and Louis Negin rounded out the cast. William McCauley composed music which Bill Howell called "a wonderfulI, glistening original score". It aired in the regular Nightfall time slot on Christmas Day of 1981.
I had a chance to listen to "Dreamy" at the
CBC Radio Archives while I was in Toronto doing research on the show last
summer (July 2004). It's quite a delightful little play about the elf
named Dreamy who is despised by all the other elves because he's perceived
as lazy. Christmas turns into a disaster that year when the other elves
attempt to dispose of Dreamy, whose secret job, it turns out, is to put
a dream into every toy. (Neil Marsh,
based on comments by Bill Howell in an e-mail to Archie Hunter)
THE PRIZE (by Don Bailey & Milo Ringham)
From what we can tell, this episode was never produced, yet references to it appear in the archives at the Concordia Centre for Broadcasting Studies in Montréal and in the CBC Radio Guide for that month, though the episode that aired on its supposed broadcast date -- December 12, 1980 -- was Max Ferguson's "Where Do We Go From Here?". Series creator/producer Bill Howell doesn't recall the story, though it would very likely have been he that produced it (as he produced 34 of the 38 episodes made that season). The database at Concordia CBS gives this brief synopsis of the story:
"Couple win vacation to inn where deaths of vacationers are frequent, and seem connected to surly employee who lost property to owners in card game."
Based on our research, we would venture a guess that "The
Prize" was a submitted for Nightfall
and either not accepted or was scrapped for one reason or another. Sadly,
both Don Bailey and Milo Ringham have passed away in the last couple of
years, so we're forced to look to other resources for answers. Concordia
indicates the presence of a script and correspondence in their file for
"The Prize", so a trip there may supply us with the answers
we're looking for. There is an archive of Don Bailey's papers at the University
of Toronto that could bear looking into. (Neil
Marsh)