Chris B

I do too. Her other relationships on the show work for me. What makes it hard is when she goes back to Derek. I feel like if they wrote him off or recasted with a stronger actor it would give her more of a chance. I'd also like to see more of her friendship with Naomi.

@AntoyneI agree with what you said about the ages. I find the relationships to be believable. The only characters I don't find believable or to have chemistry are Derek and Ashley. Beyond that all of the family relationships and friendships are believable.

I agree. I'm trying to focus less on the "what if's" and more on what I'm seeing on screen. The most interesting element of the story is what skeletons he has in his closet and that's what I'm focused on, not an imaginary run for president that will never happen. Same goes for the ages of the characters. I thought it was incredibly stupid to give Smitty and Martin teenaged kids but those same kids ended up fitting in perfectly and actually made me like their parents. I'm learning I need to be patient and trust the process. Nothing is happening exactly the way we think it is and I believe the writers will continue to surprise us.

That is interesting! I don't know if he includes Sistas in that but I know he's always been resistant to having writers rooms, especially when they tried to unionize against him years ago. One of the biggest complaints people have with Tyler's writing is how slow it is and the lack of follow through so I imagine that might be a struggle for him when he see's others moving the story forward. I mean, The Have and Have Nots was a primetime series and I wanna say something like a weeks worth of time passed over 7 seasons. He has a very unique way of writing things.

This was one of my favorite episodes so far. I understand the criticism of another event so soon but I think that's very realistic when you compare it to the actual DMV area. On Real Housewives of Potomac there is always an event with a made up award as an excuse to throw a party. It helps remind me of the importance of the Dupree family in the area. I went from not liking Martin and Smitty to really falling for them lately. The kids were actually the sweet spot that helped win me over. Those kids are great and the family unit as a whole gels really well. I also loved Martin's introduction to Eva. I love the quiet joy she expresses when interacting with what she thinks is her family. Everybody looked wonderful and I thought having Silk Press as a caterer was classic soap. Today's episode was mellow but important. I forsee another dynamic cliffhanger friday. I'm curious for next week if they planned for only 3 episodes or if it will throw off the episode rotation. We shall see.

Very interesting! I would imagine this was Taylor but could've been Poppy as well considering her ethnic background. Lauren Buglioli from Beyond the Gates mentioned in a podcast that she came very close to getting a role on Guiding Light when she was 18. Looking at the time table it seems like she was up for the role of Lizzie Spaulding when Crystal Hunt left. Of course Emme Rylan got the role. She said she viewed it as a big career disappointment but when she met with the casting director for BTG the casting director remembered her from her Guiding Light audition and said she was great and very close to getting the role.

I had no idea none of these actors were on contract. I still can't believe I'm actually enjoying Van as Lucas. I wouldn't mind if this character were Natalia and Sidwell's child. Would definitely cause complications if Lucas fell for him considering how he feels about Carly with Sonny and Brennan.

He played such a big role on Dynasty I'm surprised if they got him he wasn't on contract. I wonder if it's recurring role that could end up being upgraded.

Completely out there thought but it would be interesting if Eva was Nicole and Ted's child. I'm getting the sense Nicole may already know about the affair and we know Leslie is spiteful and a bit nuts so I could see a world where Nicole was pregnant and she stole her baby and made her believe it was a stillborn to keep a piece of Ted with her. That may be a little too on the nose Sheila though. I loved the scenes with Martin and his family today. The more I see him the more I'm liking Martin and Smitty as a couple. I really felt it today and thought including his dreams was a good reminder that he isn't fully in his right mind which helps explain why he's been so short with Smitty. I wasn't thrilled with them having teen kids but surprisingly it felt natural and worked.

He should be very proud of his work there. He left the show as the #1 cable program among Black viewers and I know the fans loved what he did with the show. I hope he carries that same positive energy to Beyond the Gates.

It would be interesting if they took more of a UK approach when it comes to people leaving the show, By that I mean not focusing so much on recasts. A good way to keep the show fresh and not so boggled down is introducing new characters and families but US soaps tend to shy away from that. Right now we have so many characters whose past is a mystery and I'd much rather dig into their history in these first few years as opposed to always feeling like you have to recast if someone leaves. We still don't know if Ashley has siblings, we know very little about Bill and Haley's family, we haven't met the McBride kids, etc.

Jamey's primetime series Sistas just got renewed for a ninth season. It's the #1 show on cable amongst Black viewers. I know many didn't like his writing on Days but none of his other work is like that which tells me it's like an issue from the top with Ron's vision. I say this to say I'm not worried about him on BTG. He's shown he can do good work and Sistas is a great example of that.

She will be my first big test for the writers. I find on modern soaps they have a habit of taking villains too far and not wanting to let them go. I'm curious how they will handle Leslie. If they do take her too far then they need to write her off but I hope they see her long term potential and hold back. She can be impactful without killing people and doing things that make it implausible to keep her around.

He didn't see her. He was on his phone and looking in the opposite direction. The only thing that scene established is that she knew him. She would be great on this show. She's one of the people I hope pop up some time during year one.

This would be my song if this was my man! I don't wanna hear nothing about what he may or may not have done!

Billy is really talented so I'm excited to see him do something new. I hope they give him a good character and something decent to work with. It's hard to get excited knowing how dull the show is but if they handle this smartly, it could be great for the show.

Kinda off topic but I just saw a Y&R article on Deadline celebrating Lauralee Bell returning which I found odd. Once I read the article, she's just returning for a couple guest spots like she always does. It made me think of what a waste it was to have a platform like Deadline reporting on your show and you literally have nothing to provide them that's worth posting about. With BTG we've all had our thoughts on the pacing but I commend them for doing something. It is shocking when you compare it to Y&R where they will literally go weeks without one story development.

I know I'll get tomatoes for this but if they needed to recast Ashley, I wouldn't be upset if Kristen Alderson played the role. Especially when you look at the actress playing Ashley's mom. But to be fair, there is such a wide variety of soap alums if they decided to recast any of the white characters. That's part of the benefit of all the soaps being primarily white for so long. I just finished today's episode and I enjoyed it. I understood Jacob's side of things more than I did on Friday's episode. I can see how he felt he was softening the blow by doing it himself but he still could've coordinated with his wife to make sure it went smoothly. She's a lawyer so you'd think he'd be able to trust her. Loved the scenes with Nicole/Sherry and Ted/Leslie. Although we now know he knows abut the affair, I don't think he knows about Eva and I do think she's his daughter. I'm curious what lengths he'll go to keep the affair a secret. This is exploding much faster than I expected. Another thought I had with the pacing is that maybe these are just our intro storylines. Most soaps start slow and let you get to know the characters before things start happening. Maybe the reason these stories are moving faster than we anticipated because this is our intro, just as a streaming/2025 pace. I wouldn't be surprised if come May they've already revealed most of these secrets and broken out into new stories.

It's a soap, that is child play compared to some things people do. I'm going to let it play out. Now you could be right in the end but I'm going off what I know so far.

I don't think that's terrible. He made a mistake and he wants to avoid his wife finding out about it. He didn't make the right choices but I still don't think it automatically means he's a bad buy. Now if we find out he's been cheating for all these years like Bill then that's another story.

Call me crazy but Ted having an affair doesn't make me hate him. For all we know this was a one off affair and Eva is at least early 20s so it's possible he made a mistake when he was young and it's now coming back to bite him in the ass. I don't think that makes him like Bill at all. We've had non-villainous characters have affairs many times on soaps. My mind immediately goes to Tom and Margo on ATWT. I think Nicole and Ted could make it through this.

This is still not bad. It allows a new audience to sample it and then if they like it they can still carry on to CBS or Paramount+ to keep watching. BET has had success in their primetime lineup with soaps so it'll be good for that audience to know there's a new soap. I know The Oval and Sistas are still very popular for them so they're likely trying to grab those viewers.

They're doing everything they can to get this show samples. I really give props to CBS, NAACP and P&G. Seeing how high their Black audience was, this is a very smart move. They're bringing soaps to an entirely new generation.

It did beat GH in delayed viewing which I do think is important since they use those Live+3/7 ratings to determine if a show is a success. I also am super pleased with the streaming numbers. I just hope we don't see it drop in upcoming weeks.

This is how I feel. Week 2 felt like the show had been on for a while and I felt it was paced in a way that I was able to easily follow it compared to week 1. I also get what they're doing with the pace. When people joke about soaps it's always about how slow they are and how you can skip months and come back to the same thing happening. If they came out with Passions pacing I don't think they'd get sampled. Plus with streaming, there is an ongoing chance for people to jump into the show. I know my younger sister is excited to watch it but she won't watch it yet because there aren't enough episodes. She's used to binging a series so she wants 20-40 episodes before she will even consider starting the show. As the show develops and has these moments, they will hopefully continue to catch new peoples eyes. When they see there's a backlog of episodes that is going to be a positive thing IMO. People get so upset binging a show and being done after 8 episodes. Another thing I think would be smart is for them to license the show to Netflix at some point. I'm not saying to remove it from Paramount Plus, but once season one is done they could license it to Netflix and I'm sure it would quickly be a top ten show there.