Chris B

I feel like Vernon and Anita need to not be hypocrites and try and take the heat off Bill in this case. It's clear that the family used him as a fixer and especially knowing he helped with Martin's situation, they need to either be quiet or support him. BTW...with Vanessa being in the hospital for food poisoning, am I the only one who thought Shanice was gonna say she's pregnant or had an STD? The only reason I say STD is because she hasn't had any memorable sex partners, but I definitely don't believe she just had food poisoning.

This is just a guess but I feel like the fact that they keep mentioning her dead husband is for a reason. We know Martin has a secret that likely involved someone dying. Martin's victim could be Alan which Leslie/Dana either knows about or finds out and she uses that to blackmail the family into letting her crimes slide.

It's not bad but the stories move too slow. It's the same problem when Dan O'Connor was CO-HW with Van Etten, they have a million stories and they all drag on endlessly with no resolution. I'd argue the majority of the stories airing now are good but you get sick of waiting months for something to happen.

He a dirty dog! Those are his kids and he hurt everyone. At this point he needed to just come clean. I can't believe I was lusting over this man! I hope they aren't quick to forgive.

I don't know if it was the writing or performance but I felt like we finally got to see the real Ted. Especially the way he talked to Martin when confronted, felt like a completely different person. He felt darker and like a total liar who was mad he got caught. I expected him to be remorseful and want to apologize to each and every family member who he came into contact with but he seemed like he didn't care. It completely changed how I view him and it makes me wonder if this is the direction they're going to take Ted in with the recast.

Wow! They could end the episode here and I'd be satisfied! They covered so much and have done it so well. I've been on the edge of my seat. It still baffles me people have said the show is moving too slow...have yall seen any of the other soaps? The cast and the writers came to play! This is how you do a reveal and they did it at a time that everybody is comfortable in their roles and delivering. Eva and Leslie are big standouts and Ted is a sorry dog. I cannot believe how he talked to Martin and Eva. All he cares about is saving himself, I don't see any guilt for what he did. I'm starting to get a better idea of why they needed to recast. I see him taking a huge personality shift.

It's funny how we all had questions about Vanessa and Naomi being missing yesterday and they both showed up just in time. I'm actually happy Vanessa was in the hospital so we could get more of her with Doug (and a bit of Shanice).

I was at the edge of my seat! This was excellent! I also didn't anticipate any of Leslie's reveal in this episode so that surprised me. I feel like most soaps would've ended on her walking in. Considering we only get 3 episodes the next two weeks, those little touches are nice. Also I feel for Eva! You can tell she was genuinely hurt and wants a family. Leslie just wants revenge and isn't taking Eva's feelings into consideration at all. I wonder how their relationship is going to transform.

I feel like this is what they're doing by creating lots of storylines but their biggest weakness for years is the inability to properly pace these stories and give resolution. A good example now would be the Gio story which has been simmering for months with very little movement. I went from not caring to being invested to not caring again because of how long it's taking for the secret to be revealed. One story like that would be fine but it seems like everything moves at this snails pace on GH. They need to do a better job of rotating the stories so everything isn't in that same treading water phase.

This was me! I finally got caught up yesterday and even then, I still may wait until Friday to binge these two episodes. I find that I can watch GH in the background because the pacing is so slow but I must be able to devote my full attention to BTG because so much happens.

The fact that people are so upset by this is a great thing in my opinion. As a CBS watcher I know at least for March Madness, that is something I'm used to but I haven't cared about those shortened weeks for years. People caring enough to want to see the show means it's building viewer loyalty which is only going to help in the long run.

The sad thing about GH is that I don't think the story ideas are bad but they drag EVERYTHING out so long that you just don't care. Like right now, why haven't they pulled the trigger on the Gio reveal yet? It makes no sense. They just go on and on in a circle with no movement for any of the stories. It cracks me up when people talk about how 2 month old BTG is moving too slow. If you wanna see slow, go to GH where it takes a year to see significant progress in any given story.

I wouldn't mind this but I feel like the Duprees are already so expansive and clearly the dominate family. What I feel Haley is missing is a family. She's Jill Foster without the Foster family. Or Brooke without the Logan's. If I had one major complaint is that there is only one family on this show. That isn't sustainable long term and so many of the characters would benefit from having some sort of family unit. I feel they could've done that while still maintaining the Duprees as the main family.

Even if they did a BET primetime special I'd much prefer that to what we're getting which is two 3 episode weeks back-to-back. It just really sucks this happened at a time when it was really important from a story stand point to stick with the Monday-Friday format. I'm curious what the cliffhanger will look like since it'll actually be Wednesday's episode.

I like that they're rotating things. We started with a major focus on Bill/Dani as they developed Nicole/Ted/Silk Press. Now that story is about to explode and they've been building on Martin's secret. It also seems like a story is brewing for Anita. Again, it's only been two months but so far they've given us a lot of variety.

I do agree with you 100% here but for whatever reason, they seem committed to these characters. The fact that we're getting a Ted recast and not Derek is shocking to me. The only thing that makes sense to me is if they have something major planned for later on that depends on these two characters, otherwise I don't understand why they haven't at least dropped Derek.

Ratings are good (according to a Deadline article today they're averaging 2.1 million viewers) and we're two months in. We're just about to start seeing the stuff when they made the initial changes. I don't think it's accurate to say the show is in desperate need of any help. What soap was perfect two months in? And what is two months in the grand scheme of things? That's nothing for a soap.

Deadline gave us a rare glimpse into the ratings that CBS is going by which I assume includes Live+3/7 since these numbers differ from the live ratings @Errolprovides. Link: https://deadline.com/2025/04/beyond-the-gates-tide-febreze-product-placement-1236378311/ "While Beyond the Gates has posted impressive gains in The Talk’s old timeslot — the Michele Val Jean drama is up 70% and averages 2.1 million viewers."

I'm curious if it'll change with the recast but I don't find Ted and Bill to be similar at all. Bill reminds me more of a JR Ewing type of sleeps around and views his wife more as a prop (at least with Dani) whereas Ted just had an affair that led to a child. I believe that Ted genuinely messed up and loves Nicole which I don't see with Bill and Dani. Valarie is still there but not Telma. If they end up bringing her band mates on, maybe this could be an opportunity to finally get Victoria Rowell on board. I do think her joining would give them another big jolt of publicity which could be nice for the second half of the year.

I feel like the show is all in on her (and probably Derek too). The actress who plays Ashley did post sadness over some of the things she's read about herself online but she's still filming as recent as this week. I feel like the show is going to stick with both characters until it works. I do enjoy Ashley but I feel like the writing and her main scene partner let her down.

I don't find the slang to be overdone or unrealistic, I just feel like the actors struggle to sell it which makes it stand out. I feel like it works if it's Chelsea, Kat or Eva but Samantha and Tyrell struggle with it. I feel like with the exception of Derek, all of the white actors are good but the way they're set up makes little sense (with the exception of Joey). Like you said, Ashley has a mother on the show who is connected to multiple characters but instead of using her to tell us who Ashley is, we have these Mary Sue situations to tell us how great she is. Why not utilize her mother? Why not show what her mother thinks of Andre or Derek? Another area of opportunity would've been giving Smitty a family member. Could he not be a sibling of Vanessa or Pamela's son? He feels so isolated since he's surrounded by Martin's family with no friends and a distant husband. Where is his outlet to express his feelings? And Derek of course is just all wrong. Like you said, he should be a cop, not a fireman and he's too isolated. The scenes with Jacob are helping but he still can't act.

It's too soon to truly judge but I did feel like Thursday and Friday were easier to watch than the show had been. The new writers haven't introduced their own stories yet but you can tell they're interpreting the material in a more relationship/character driven way. You also don't have that comedic undertone all of Ron's stuff tended to have. Comedy is fine but could be overused by Ron. I also am sure this won't be popular to say but I do think the show looks great from a production standpoint. When you consider the budget they have, the sets looked nice and the lighting was decent.

I saw on Twitter someone day that Keith doesn't start as Ted until May 15th. With the 4 preemptions we can expect the next two weeks, that should push his debut to around May 21st. If true, it'll be nice to see Turtleneck Ted get a strong send off before the new actor slots in for the next chapter of his life.

In the recent Kim Lankford interview she mentioned not really seeing the cast since she left the show. We do know Kevin Dobson, Ted Shackelford, Donna Mills, Michele Lee and Joan Van Ark seem to be the cloest. Dobson of course has passed away and we never see or hear about Ted which makes me worry about how he may be doing. Joan and Constance remained close with Julie Harris until her death. I know Constance is close with Michele, William Devane and John Pleshette. Claudia Lonow and Michele Lee have remained close and I remember Lonow included Lee on her ABC sitcom How To Live With Your Parents. The Knots and Dallas casts feel like they've done a lot to stay in touch compared to some of the primetime soaps. You definitely didn't have that on Dynasty or Falcon Crest.

I haven't watched this weeks episodes yet beyond some clips but I did want to go back to the conversation about criticism for the show. I think part of why everybody is on a different page is because it's been so long since we had a new soap and everybody has didn't expectations and time-tables in mind. I know for myself there are many things I'd change but overall I am still enjoying the day-to-day. The changes I want are more based around the production model and casting. I am still enjoying the writing and the pacing. But I also keep in mind we're still watching stuff from before the show aired. We know they're continuously making tweaks behind the scenes and we know we have something significant coming in May, in addition to a major recast. Even then, we'll only be looking at changes they made based on what they saw while still in a bubble without the show airing. It could be another 2-3 months before we see any changes based on the public reaction to the show. For me, that's why I've chosen not to focus so much on the negatives. It's very rare a soap launches perfectly and as long as I can enjoy the show on a day-to-day basis, that's all I need right now. I guess for me the point I'd start to really be critical would probably be August-September. I feel like that's enough time to work out kinks and make changes based on feedback. But I will say, reading all of the different opinions in here is part of my joy watching the show. I don't expect everybody to think the same as me and I enjoy seeing everybodys thoughts, even if they aren't enjoying the show.