History is set to be made as Beyond the Gates looks to be the first soap opera to premiere since the late 1980s that will focus on an African American family. It also will make history as the first new soap opera to debut since the late 1990s.
Michele Val Jean has created Beyond the Gates, a brand new soap opera that will center around African American characters. This is the first time that this has been explored since Generations, which aired on NBC from 1989 to 1991. Sheila Ducksworth is serving as the executive producer of Beyond the Gates.
According to the show’s logline and a report from Entertainment Weekly, the series follows an affluent African American county in a Maryland suburb just outside of Washington D.C.
As EW reports and logline states, the show focuses on the Duprees, “led by genteel patriarch Vernon (played by Clifton Davis), a retired senator, and fierce matriarch Anita (Tamara Tunie), a former singer. Alongside daughters Nicole (Daphnee Duplaix), a high-achieving philanthropist and psychiatrist, and Dani (Karla Mosley), a free-spirited former model-turned-momager, the multi-generational Duprees are considered a powerful and prestigious family and the 'very definition of Black royalty,' per the show's logline — but beneath the opulence reside juicy secrets.”
Not only is it the first new soap opera to feature Black characters in decades, but it is also the first new soap opera at all since Passions came out in 1999.
Val Jean, the creator of the series, is not a novice to the world of soap operas, having lengthy credits that include work as a writer on The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital. Val Jean herself began her career as a writer on the aforementioned, Generations.
It was her first staff job and she shows pride in her work.
In an interview featuring Ducksworth and Val Jean over Zoom with Entertainment Weekly, Val Jean said, “Sally Sussman created not only a wonderful show but a wonderful atmosphere,” she recalls of that period. “We were the little soap that couldn't, really, because we were opposite the last half hour of Young and the Restless...Generations was very much ahead of its time.”
It hurt when the show got canceled, with Val Jean saying, “To me personally, it felt like a death because I was so happy there.”
It’s not often that life gives you a second chance at something so groundbreaking with the ability to make history and perhaps aid in helming the beginning of a new standard in daytime television.
Val Jean initially had her doubts about the show getting off on its feet, explaining that, “Networks weren’t greenlighting soaps, they were canceling them…when I started Generations there were 13 soaps on the air, now there are three and one on Peacock.”
Not only is Beyond the Gates groundbreaking in being the first soap opera to feature a Black family since the early 1990s, but it’s also revolutionary in that it’s a new soap opera being made at all when the genre hasn't been a part of new productions since the late 1990s.
Ducksworth expresses pride in making history in more ways than one. She explained that, “Nobody is making soaps anymore. The courage and belief that there could be something new that hasn't been done in over a quarter of a century, it feels great that the people behind us recognized the need and wanted to make this happen.”
When speaking about Beyond the Gates, Val Jean continued, “We wanted to have a show on the air that spoke to a different side of the Black experience…Not the downtrodden, not the ghettoized. We wanted to show rich, Black people doing messy things.”
What helped get Beyond the Gates rolling was the determination of Sheila Ducksworth, who is an executive producer on the show and is, “the president of CBS’ production partnership with the NAACP.”
As Entertainment Weekly reports, this is a part of a, “ four-year effort to break new ground in the genre.”
In the same Zoom interview, Ducksworth said, “I've long been fascinated with showing the side that we haven't seen a lot of…In these Maryland suburbs, there were some of the most affluent African American counties in all of America. So looking at that and the wealth of everything at Howard University, I felt that this was an area that was ripe for the picking. You get the upstairs, the downstairs of it all. It's true to life."
She continues by saying, “The Duprees, they don't always agree. But when push comes to shove, that family will stick together, right, wrong or indifferent. That is basically the foundation of the show. There’s dysfunction, but at the end of the day, they love each other.”
Beyond the Gates will still feature everything that makes a good soap opera, including, as Val Jean puts it, “secrets and lies and betrayals and love and friendship.”
Ducksworth adds on that, “It's a really complex web of people and places and things that all intersect in a way that you would never believe. It’s incredibly unpredictable and really fresh and new.”
Val Jean continues to praise how Beyond the Gates is something different that hasn’t been on television in years. “This is a different kind of world,” says Val Jean of Gates. “The characters are different from anything that I've seen in daytime. That's what I'm excited about. We're presenting something that hasn't been done before."
Beyond the Gates will have its premiere on February 24 at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT on CBS and will be available to stream for people who can’t catch it anytime on Paramount+.
From featuring an African American family in a soap opera to being a new soap opera in general, Beyond the Gates is already set to make history.