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Beyond the Gates premieres on CBS tomorrow [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-23

The NAACP’s getting into the soap opera business. Beyond the Gates is the first new soap opera on American television in twenty-five years, and barely the second one to feature black characters as the main characters (the first one was Generations, which ran from 1989 to 1991).

The new soap was announced in a press release from the NAACP last year. At the time, the working title for the show was “The Gates.”

The joint venture between CBS Studios and the NAACP is developing a new daytime drama for the CBS Television Network. The series, titled THE GATES, follows the lives of a wealthy Black family in a posh, gated community. Michele Val Jean, who has written more than 2,000 episodes of daytime dramas and won multiple Daytime Emmy and WGA Awards for her work on THE BOLD & THE BEAUTIFUL and "General Hospital," will serve as writer and showrunner. Val Jean will also be an executive producer alongside Sheila Ducksworth, Leon Russell, Derrick Johnson and Kimberly Doebereiner. THE GATES will be produced by the CBS Studios/NAACP production venture in partnership with P&G Studios, a division of Procter & Gamble. "THE GATES will be everything we love about daytime drama, from a new and fresh perspective," said Sheila Ducksworth, president of the CBS Studios NAACP venture. "This series will salute an audience that has been traditionally underserved, with the potential to be a groundbreaking moment for broadcast television. With multi-dimensional characters, juicy storylines and Black culture front and center, THE GATES will have impactful representation, one of the key touchstones of the venture."

But don’t expect the main characters on this show to be saints. The Dupree family, the main family on Beyond the Gates, have as much dirty laundry, so to speak, as the Newmans on The Young and the Restless or the Forresters on The Bold and the Beautiful.

The most important character on the show seems to be Anita Dupree, played by Tamara Tunie. As I didn’t really watch soaps before the pandemic, I knew Tamara Tunie from her work as a medical examiner on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

I didn’t know she was in six episodes of the English dub of Cowboy Bebop, but I preferred to watch that show in Japanese with English subtitles. And I had no idea Tunie was in five times as many episodes of As the World Turns as episodes of the Law & Order franchise in about as many years.

Some of the major stars of As the World Turns don’t have portraits on IMDb. But, as I expected, most of the ones who do have portraits are white actors. Tamara Tunie was probably the only black actor on that show for most of the time she was on it.

Dani Dupree (Karla Mosley) about to clear her ex-husband's desk with a golf club in a scene from Beyond the Gates.

Anita Dupree lives at Fairmont Crest, a gated community in Maryland founded by her father-in-law, Paul Cheeks Dupree. Anita’s husband is Vernon Dupree (Clifton Davis), a former senator.

Anita and Vernon have two daughters, Nicole and Dani, both adults now. From what I can gather, Nicole’s life is fairly stable for the most part, while Dani’s life will be the source of much of the drama for the soap’s first few episodes.

Nicole (Daphnée Duplaix) is a successful psychologist married to a successful plastic surgeon, Dr. Ted Richardson (Maurice Johnson). They have two children, a son who is married to a white man, and a daughter who is described as a spoiled brat.

Dani (Karla Mosley), on the other hand, is a high school dropout and former supermodel who very recently divorced the slimy Bill Hamilton (Timon Kyle Durrett). Apparently, the bastard dropped her in favor of their daughter’s best friend. And it looks like he's going to menace Vernon.

By the way, Karla Mosley played a token black character on Guiding Light back in the 2008 — 2009 season. She also appeared very briefly on The Young and the Restless and several times on The Bold and the Beautiful as a transgender character.

A scene from The Young and the Restless.

There has been representation on soap operas in CBS, but it has fallen way short of what has been possible. A couple of years ago, CBS reran a classic episode of The Young and the Restless from 1991, the one with a masquerade ball. There were black characters in there, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

But at least one of the black characters in the masquerade ball episode has an enduring legacy: Kristoff St. John played Neil Winters, dressed as Dionysus. Neil Winters has something to do with Chancellor-Winters, a company that is frequently mentioned in much more recent episodes. Don’t ask me what it is that Chancellor-Winters does, but it seems to be big business on par with Newman Enterprises or Jabot.

Neil Winters went to the ball with Olivia Barber (Tonya Williams). Of course characters on soap operas have to fall in and out of love fairly frequently, but back then there was also the pressure to avoid “interracial” romance, which had the silver lining of requiring the show to have at least two more black characters.

A scene from the classic 1991 masquerade ball episode of The Young and the Restless.

That meant soaps had to have four black characters, but the producers generally felt no need for more. Maybe things have changed for the better since that episode first aired, but Victoria Rowell, who played Drucilla Winters on The Young and the Restless for a decade and a half, sued the producers of Days of Our Lives in 2015.

Rowell claimed that her advocacy for black actors and crew members was the main reason she was turned down for Days of Our Lives, and not anything creative. The case dragged on for a couple of years before a settlement was reached, but we might never know if Rowell was satisfied by the settlement.

Rowell went on to create The Rich and the Ruthless, fictionalizing her struggles. Luchina Fisher for ABC News:

Jamey Giddens, a longtime soap watcher and co-founder of the popular website and podcast Daytime Confidential, said the problem of lack of diversity in daytime drama persists. "Each soap has three to four black characters in play but they never get the strong, meaty stories that their white counterparts get," he said. "These characters will get serviced, then back-burnered for say, six months."

Also, their storylines tend to be hermetically sealed off from those of the white characters. For example, Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) might have turned to Amanda (Mishael Morgan) for a shoulder to cry on after her intense hatred of Diane cost her Jack’s love, but Phyllis could just as easily have turned to any other woman other than Diane for that.

The main issue, though, is what happens behind the camera, Giddens said. "There have not been as many writers in the writers' room telling these stories. There are two, maybe three black writers across the board," he said, adding that since the start of daytime dramas, all the way back to the days of radio, there have only been a "handful of black writers, directors and producers in this genre that is beloved by black families." [...] Giddens credits Rowell with calling attention to the lack of diversity in soap operas and establishing the Winters family on "Y&R." "Vicki has long been one of the most vocal critics, and it cost her a lot of punishment for speaking out and saying what needed to be said," said Giddens, who is also a co-writer of "The Rich and the Ruthless."

Rowell applauded the announcement of “The Gates” last year, and it’s possible she might show up on that show. And she also reminded CBS that Drucilla Winters hasn’t been explicitly killed off from Young and the Restless.

Here’s the official trailer for Beyond the Gates.

x YouTube Video

Beyond the Gates will air on CBS at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Mondays through Fridays, following The Young and the Restless at 12:30 p.m. and The Bold and the Beautiful at 1:30 p.m. (the only soap in the CBS line-up running just a half hour instead of a full hour).

According to TV Guide, on The Young and the Restless tomorrow,

Victor has some bad news for Lily; Kyle tries to get Claire to reveal information about her family; Jack is completely shocked.

Shocked about what, I have no idea. The storyline about Nate trying to reunite his long-lost half-brother with their dying mother has felt like filler, and, except for Lily’s involvement in Victor’s bad news, it’s neatly walled off from the stories of the white characters.

On The Bold and the Beautiful,

Remy makes a shocking discovery; Bill encounters a new dilemma; Finn reveals the truth to Steffy; Poppy and Li's relationship is strained.

Already in last Friday’s episode Finn revealed that he’s Luna’s father after dragging his feet for what felt like months (Luna tried to kill Steffy last year). But he also told Steffy there was something else that he worried she would not be quite as understanding about.

Also, it’s starting to look like Steffy’s plan to break up that show’s only “interracial” romance — Hope Logan (Annika Noelle) and Carter Walton (Lawrence Saint-Victor) — and regain control of Forrester Creations will actually work. Steffy figured that placing Daphne Rose (Murielle Hillaire), an alluring French black woman, at Forrester Creations might get Carter to drop Hope like a hot potato.

As for Beyond the Gates, TV Guide doesn’t really say anything specific, but I suppose that’s to be expected for the first episode.

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