Five Months of Beyond the Gates: A Look Back on the Highs and Lows of TV’s Newest Daytime Drama
Beyond the Gates premiered on CBS on February 24 and is television’s youngest daytime drama, a record previously held by fellow CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. New episodes air weekdays at 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m. PT. Significantly, it is the first daytime serial featuring a predominantly Black cast since NBC’s Generations, which aired from 1989 to 1991, and the first new soap opera to premiere in daytime since Passions in 1999 on NBC. BTG aired its 100th episode on July 29.
Heroes
There’s so much to love about Beyond the Gates. Shall we start? One thing, the casting is on point. It’s hard to imagine a different actor in any of the roles, and a production rarely finds lightning in a bottle the way the team for Beyond the Gates has. Two of the actresses who stand out in particular are Karla Mosley (Dani Dupree) and Trisha Mann-Grant (Dana “Leslie” Thomas).
Dani’s character is a heroine that audiences can’t help but root for. Her husband betrays her before the series premiere, and with her daughter’s close friend, no less! It’s hard to blame her when she goes a little mad at Bill and Hayley’s wedding. Holding the bride and groom at gunpoint might be taking it too far, but what a way to end your premiere week, right?
She tries to pretend that everything is okay, despite her heartbreak and the fact that deep down, she still wanted her cheating husband back in the beginning. We can’t help but root for her and Andre Richardson, a couple that’s had the most engaging slow-burn romance on the show. A no-strings-attached fling with a free-spirited guy like Andre is just the kind of relationship she needs right now.
Villains
Dana “Leslie” Thomas is the villain we love to hate. Watching her on the small screen is like watching a train wreck, in all of the best ways - you just can’t look away! She may commit crimes (allegedly?) to achieve her goals, but it makes for great television. Finally, it’s a testament to Mann-Grant’s acting that, beneath the surface, the audience can see that Leslie isn’t all evil. The serial hasn’t explored the other side of Leslie yet, but she loves her daughter, Eva, and underneath her tough exterior, there’s a woman just trying to due right by herself and her daughter, but of course, goes about it with less-than-favorable methods.
Romance
The romance of Beyond the Gates is one of the most compelling elements of the series. What would a daytime drama be without a little love in the afternoon? Dani and Andre’s situation-ship takes the prize for the best couple of the serial for their slow-burning romance. They have all the makings of a future supercouple: a potential love triangle (Ashley and Andre?), friends with benefits turning into something more, and family obstacles (Andre’s aunt is Dani’s sister Nicole through her marriage to Ted, but Dani and Andre don’t share blood).
To be fair, it’s hard for couples not to have overlapping family members. General Hospital’s Dante Falconeri and the dearly departed Sam McCall, anyone? Beyond the Gates will learn this the longer the serial is on the air.
Another exciting love triangle brewing is between newly discovered sisters Kat Richardson and Eva Thomas, competing for the affections of Tomas Navarro. Kat already can’t stand Eva for her role in Leslie’s schemes against her family, and they already share a father. Things should get interesting when Kat learns the man she lost her virginity to almost hooked up with the long-lost half-sister she never wanted.
Honorable mention to our favorite happy couple (for now?), Naomi Hamilton-Hawthorne and Jacob Hawthorne. We’ll just have to wait and see where things go when Jacob finds out Naomi is keeping Martin Richardson’s crime a secret. They’ve had a pretty stable marriage until now, and it doesn’t seem like anything can keep this supercouple in the making apart.
Take a Hint
The legacy soaps (General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, and The Young and the Restless) can learn a couple of things from Beyond the Gates. Most significantly, the depiction of young people on Beyond The Gates is, while not entirely realistic (it’s still a soap opera), the most realistic of all the soaps on TV and streaming. For example, when has a teen or young adult on General Hospital referenced TikTok or Instagram? How many characters on the legacy soaps are influencers or content creators? The fact is, those are the career paths younger generations are taking, and it makes sense to depict that in the media that audiences consume.
Secondly, Beyond The Gates rotates its cast much better than the legacy soaps. General Hospital might as well be called “Mob Wars” or the “Sonny, Jason, and Carly Hour.” Legacy characters and families, such as the Scorpios, Joneses, and Webbers, are criminally underutilized. Meanwhile, it feels like we know everyone on Beyond The Gates. The Duprees are always front and center, but it feels like a complete community with the Hamiltons, Richardsons, and all the residents of Fairmont Crest.
Lastly, Beyond The Gates knows how to utilize its older cast. Anitta and Vernon Dupree are the happily married matriarch and patriarch of the series, but they’re still heavily featured in the storylines. Anitta is reuniting with her music group that she was estranged from for years. Meanwhile, Vernon is involved in covering up a crime his grandson, Martin Richardson, committed two years prior. Best of all, they stay involved in the story without their marriage being in trouble for a storyline.
Room for Improvement
Beyond the Gates isn’t without its flaws. Specifically, some storylines move more slowly than others and with no clear direction, while characters who started prominently have had gradually less screentime. For example, Bill and Hailey started the show front and center as the two town pariahs. Now, Hailey is supposedly pregnant with Bill’s child, but Dani is skeptical, and Ashley overheard at the hospital that Hailey declined an ultrasound. This was over a month ago, and we’ve seen no development, but if it were a couple of months back, this story would be front and center.
Final Verdict
Beyond The Gates is an entertaining and thrilling daytime drama that reminds audiences what soap operas are meant to be. Its smart writing and dialogue prove that daytime soap operas can have a place in today’s society if they can keep up with the times. The well-rounded and developed characters give us heroes to root for and keep us tuned in every day.
