New Details Announced (TL; DR) - November 12, 2024:

• Beyond the Gates premieres Monday, February 24, 2025 on CBS. Stream Live and On Demand on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscription.
• The series will air weekdays at 2:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT on CBS.

 

New Details Announced (TL; DR) - September 19, 2024:

• "The Gates" is now called "Beyond The Gates."
• Key Art/Logo for "Beyond The Gates" released.
• Soap alums Tamara Tunie ("As The World Turns"), Daphnee Duplaix ("One Life to Live," "Passions") and Karla Mosley are the first actors officially cast by the show.
• "Beyond The Gates" is a one-hour daytime drama.
• The series is set to premiere in early 2025. Previously, CBS announced it would debut in January 2025.
• CBS has formally announced the series will begin production later this fall in Atlanta; confirming the film location (city), but not studio.
• Robert Guza Jr. ("General Hospital," "Sunset Beach") and Julie Carruthers ("All My Children," "Port Charles") are officially confirmed as executive producers, joining a team led by creator, showrunner, and executive producer Michele Val Jean, and fellow executive producers Sheila Ducksworth, Leon Russell, Derrick Johnson and Kimberly Doebereiner.
• Anna Saalfeld is also a new addition to the executive producer team, having never been previously announced. This makes it eight executive producers behind "Beyond The Gates," the most for a daytime drama series ever.
• P&G Studios, a division of Procter & Gamble, remains on board as a partner on the series which is being developed and produced by the CBS Studios/NAACP Venture, led by Ducksworth.
• An official synopsis has been released for "Beyond The Gates."

For the full story, click here.

Note: "BTG" will be the official acronym used for "Beyond The Gates" on the SON Community. Posts/threads created should always start with "BTG:" going forward.

For reference, the current soap acronyms are "B&B" (The Bold and the Beautiful), "DAYS" (Days of our Lives"), "GH" (General Hospital") and "Y&R" (The Young and the Restless). "ALL" is for all shows, while "AMC" is for All My Children.

 

• Michele Val Jean’s CBS Daytime Drama ‘The Gates’ Retitled ‘Beyond The Gates’, Sets Early 2025 Launch

 

• Tamara Tunie Returns To Daytime Playing Family Matriarch In CBS Drama ‘Beyond The Gates’

 

• Soap Alums Karla Mosley & Daphnee Duplaix Join ‘Beyond The Gates’

Also, #BeyondTheGates is the official hashtag to be used on social media, per CBS.

Facebook and Instagram pages have been created, but are not active. Will share the link when they are officially available.

 

 

PREVIOUS:

https://www.soapoperanetwork.com/2024/03/cbs-studios-naacp-the-gates-daytime-drama-series-cbs

On 7/11/2024 at 9:22 AM, ReddFoxx said:

I had a random dream a dream that Lisa Bonet, Kadeem Hardison and Chrystale Wilson were in this. Lisa and Kadeem were playing a typical soap couple and Chrystale was breaking up a fight between two women over a man.

And new information will probably start trickling out during the fall when the new TV season starts. That's the time to start building interest.

That is quite random and oddly specific!

17 hours ago, vanguard said:

And it's bad enough, in my opinion, that they didn't offer a tiny tidbit of The Gates during the Daytime Emmys. That was the moment. Promoting a new endeavor as early as possible is always key.

I agree. You’re developing the first daytime soap in 25 years, a history-making event, and you don’t even celebrate it on your sole primetime showcase devoted to the genre? 

And it doesn’t just have to be about staffing news. It could be someone from the network going more in depth about why they pivoted to soaps, etc. What’s the backstory? Who approached who? MVJ is probably slammed with developing, but they could trot out a CBS rep to talk about it. This is 2024. Gotta think a little outside the box and the old rulebook. There needs to be a different strategy to keep people’s interest level up and cut through the noise that is our world today.

Hopefully, they have an ace card up their sleeves and surprise us with some huge names that go well beyond known daytime stars. Maybe Vivica A. Fox returns to her daytime roots? Maybe they’ve lured a few sitcom favorites on the level of Jackée to the show. (Mo’Nique!) It’s getting hard out there for actors at every level, especially for Black actresses of a certain age, and some “A-listers” or people who are “A-list adjacent” might leap at a chance for a steady gig, perhaps with some outs to do other stuff.

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by Faulkner

8 hours ago, SteelCity said:

That is quite random and oddly specific!

When I dream about soaps it is always like that, at random and in detail.

7 hours ago, Faulkner said:

Hopefully, they have an ace card up their sleeves and surprise us with some huge names that go well beyond known daytime stars. Maybe Vivica A. Fox returns to her daytime roots? Maybe they’ve lured a few sitcom favorites on the level of Jackée to the show. (Mo’Nique!) It’s getting hard out there for actors at every level, especially for Black actresses of a certain age, and some “A-listers” or people who are “A-list adjacent” might leap at a chance for a steady gig, perhaps with some outs to do other stuff.

I would guess they're keeping as far away from Mo'Nique as possible.

I do feel like the general lack of promotion is just a sad reality for today's soap world - they know there isn't a lot of interest, or they assume there isn't and don't care about changing that.

If they want to get back some lapsed soap fans, I would say they should consider hiring Debbi Morgan. 

I noticed in an article about The Bay casting, one of the new cast members is listed as being from The Gates. 
 

 

Real Andrews (“GH”), James Preston (“The Gates) and Kym Whitley (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) return as series regulars. Daytime legend Darnell Williams (“All My Children”) joins the cast in the recurring role of psychiatrist Dr. Josef Givens.

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/jackie-zeman-general-hospital-the-bay-special-episode-1236067738/amp/

1 minute ago, Chris B said:

I noticed in an article about The Bay casting, one of the new cast members is listed as being from The Gates. 

They mean the TV show The Gates from 2010.

13 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I do feel like the general lack of promotion is just a sad reality for today's soap world - they know there isn't a lot of interest, or they assume there isn't and don't care about changing that.

Measured promotion is a reality for most network television, I think unless you’re doing a reboot/revival or doing CSI, L&O or Grey’s Anatomy. I am hard-pressed to think of any new network television series that will debut next year that is getting a lot of promotion right now.  I am not talking about “prestige television” series that are usually showing on some streaming platform anyway. 
When B&B debuted, I was in primary school so beyond those teasers shown in early 1987, I am not sure what major promotion was done beforehand.

NGL though, I was hoping that Sheila Duckworth would put in an appearance at Essence Fest to at least mention that there was a breakthrough series on the horizon in January 2025. That seems like a missed opportunity, given the huge crowds who turn out for the festival.

44 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Measured promotion is a reality for most network television, I think unless you’re doing a reboot/revival or doing CSI, L&O or Grey’s Anatomy. I am hard-pressed to think of any new network television series that will debut next year that is getting a lot of promotion right now.  I am not talking about “prestige television” series that are usually showing on some streaming platform anyway. 
When B&B debuted, I was in primary school so beyond those teasers shown in early 1987, I am not sure what major promotion was done beforehand.

That's true, but I think there was a hope given the momentous decision to order a new soap for the first time since 1987 that they might make more effort. I suppose it gets us prepared for how little expectation to have.

I don't know what major promotion was done for B&B either. I know they started those glossy promos a few months before the show hit the air, based on what's on Youtube.

4 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

That's true, but I think there was a hope given the momentous decision to order a new soap for the first time since 1987 that they might make more effort. I suppose it gets us prepared for how little expectation to have.

I don't know what major promotion was done for B&B either. I know they started those glossy promos a few months before the show hit the air, based on what's on Youtube.

It might be a little bit too early to predict and I am just going to try keep an open mind. If by Thanksgiving, I see scant promotion, then I will know something is wrong but I would give to at least Labor Day before citing a lack of effort.

And for people who might complain that it might get lost in the attention given to prime time television debuts, if promotion starts too early, people can start to ignore and eventually forget about it anyway. 

1 minute ago, DramatistDreamer said:

It might be a little bit too early to predict and I am just going to try keep an open mind. If by Thanksgiving, I see scant promotion, then I will know something is wrong but I would give to at least Labor Day before citing a lack of effort.

I suppose given everything going on this summer and fall, I can't blame them. A part of me also wonders if they are afraid Trump and the GOP ecosystem will use promotion of a soap opera with a black female creator and presumably a large number of black talent in front of and behind the camera as some kind of rallying cry against the network. I hope that isn't a factor. 

5 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I suppose given everything going on this summer and fall, I can't blame them. A part of me also wonders if they are afraid Trump and the GOP ecosystem will use promotion of a soap opera with a black female creator and presumably a large number of black talent in front of and behind the camera as some kind of rallying cry against the network. I hope that isn't a factor. 

Nah, I doubt it. If the GOP/TFG is focused on a daytime soap among so many other issues that would be an indictment against their priorities. 

15 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I don't know what major promotion was done for B&B either. I know they started those glossy promos a few months before the show hit the air, based on what's on Youtube.

The only thing I remember were those promos that would air during the mid show bumpers of the other CBS daytime soaps. I don’t remember those promos ever airing during prime time. TV may have had print ads from stills of those same television promos but I don’t remember so I am not sure.

Also, from a writer’s perspective, I would put the smack down on anyone trying to leak anything right now. Folks would just have to sweat out the summer before any clues begin to emerge.

Edited July 13, 20241 yr by DramatistDreamer

This is uncharted territory for a daytime soap to launch in this kind of crowded media environment, especially when the networks essentially left this genre for dead for so many years. It was a whole different world when Passions premiered (1999) and may as well be a different universe from when CBS last launched a new soap (B&B in 1987). It’s a truly unique event that doesn’t have any apples-to-apples comparisons (which is why I’m questioning using traditional methods).

I’m curious what kind of promotional strategy they’ll employ. It’s fascinating to me.

Ads during CBS Daytime (both on linear and Paramount+ streams of the soaps) will be a given. If this were Frons era ABC (which owned their soaps), he’d force some kind of crossover event on the current soaps. But that’s also a different era. I’d hate to see what that would look like on modern-day Y&R and B&B. 

Obviously they have a target audience in mind, and CBS has a lot of primetime series that have rated well with Black viewers (The Equalizer being No. 1). NFL comes back early September.

CBS will be premiering most of its fall schedule in October, with Equalizer coming 10/27:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cbs-fall-2024-tv-premiere-dates-1235947646/amp

BET would be a great platform of course, and they’re luckily still part of the corporate family (even though it’s costly talked about as up for same). What major fall events/premieres are lined up for them? The BET Awards have come and gone. I could see them rerunning episodes on BET for increased visibility, but that would be post-premiere.

An A-lister might help, even if it’s a short premiere arc, like what The City tried to do with Morgan Fairchild back in the ‘90s. Victoria Rowell making a return to soaps would probably be the biggest story in terms of actors primarily known for their soap work, only because she’s still so popular and hasn’t worked on daytime in 20 years. But someone we’d be surprised to see on daytime would really help cut through the noise.
 

 

Edited July 13, 20241 yr by Faulkner

I'm not going to make any assumptions about promotion or lack thereof so soon. They're still staffing up.

19 hours ago, Vee said:

I'm not going to make any assumptions about promotion or lack thereof so soon. They're still staffing up.

I agree; I don't doubt CBS' dedication to this soap, and I also have the mindset that no news, right now, is good news. If too much came out NOW I'd be worried/bored. Plus, I suspect they'll maintain the standard six-to-eight weeks tape-to-air model the other CBS soaps follow. So, I suspect September/October/November production, a break for Thanksgiving through the New Year, and then a return in January. So, I suspect, we'll have one-to-two months of material shot prior to airing.

Come on people. Don't Monday morning quarterback The Gates prematurely. Let the show roll out in due time. I sure hope MVJ is not looking at social media. I trust that she knows what she's doing.