BTG: History, Behind the Scenes Articles & Photos

[TEdgeofNight]

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. 

[ReddFoxx]

If it was a month out from the debut with no promotion then production would have dropped the ball, but we are still months away. There is a lot invested in this so it's highly unlikely it won't be promoted adequately. 

[Liberty City]

Especially after what Errol said a few pages back about the promotional campaign from CBS.

[Bright Eyes]

I wonder if history could repeat itself and The Gates will run with B&B for 5-6 months before B&B is ultimately cancelled like what happened with Passions/Sunset Beach.

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. In April 1999 when Susan D. Lee dealt with the NBC soaps, despite the fact that AW had the better ratings, she canceled AW & made a deal with Spelling. Sunset Beach got a 6 month extension, till the end of the year & not a day longer. They knew on April 12, 1999 that they were off the air as of Dec. 31, 1999, so months & months ahead of time. 

[Broderick]

I wouldn't imagine there's much of anything to publicize at this point, other than what they've already announced:  Michele Val Jean is creating a soap to premiere in early 2025.  I doubt there's an "official" title yet, no cast, very few production slots filled, only a "tentative" bible and perhaps some rough drafts of the first few scripts.

A lot of y'all are likely too young to remember Y&R's "publicity campaign" in 1973.  A couple of months before the show began, CBS let us know that Where the Heart Is would be biting the dust "sometime in the spring" and would be replaced by Bill Bell's new show The Innocent Years, to be produced by John Conboy. 

A week or so before the show premiered, we were advised the title of Bell's show had been changed to Young and Restless Years.  It was (vaguely) described as being about "man-woman chemistry in a fictional Midwestern city."  We were treated to the names of some of the central characters, one of whom (Russell Henderson) never even made it to the air.  

A few days before the premiere, we got a cast list, and the girl playing Leslie Brooks in the cast list didn't play Leslie Brooks on the show.  Someone else did. 

All of that to say -- as they tell writers -- "never get married to your first draft". 

The first draft of "The Gates" (as well as the title of the show itself) will probably change 15 times between now and January.  (In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the "rich family living in the posh, gated community", who we're currently led to believe are the central characters, become minor, sidelined in-laws by the time the final drafts are submitted.  Stranger things have happened, lol.)  

[Vee]

Same thing happened with several roles on OLTL and AMC before the premiere, IIRC. 

[Broderick]

Didn't One Life to Live premiere with all these billowing flames in its opening titles, presumably to reflect the name of the series -- Between Heaven & Hell, which of course ultimately wasn't the show's title at all?  lol.  

At any rate, these types of shows are a "moving target" until they're put on tape, and even then, drastic changes can occur before they hit the air.  Too much publicity too quickly (especially in these days of social media) can only serve to make Michele look like a lame-brain when something heavily publicized never materializes on-screen.  Or even worse, the fear of looking like a lame-brain might cause her to retain a title, a character, a location, or a premise that she fundamentally KNOWS she should ditch once the scripts are being taped.   

[vanguard]

I still don't think it would've hurt to receive a "small snack" of The Gates, so to speak, preferably during the Daytime Emmys. As it was pointed out, save the casting info for later, but a small continued acknowledgement of the show would've been nice.

Edited July 16, 2024 by vanguard

[Liberty City]

It would've done nothing. Why give a snack of something that's not even in a place to be presented. It would've been dumb.

[te.]

Add how fast the news cycle moves anyway - the only thing a "snack" would've provided is probably confusion, because as @Broderick points out a lot of things will probably change between now and the premiere in January. More things will fall into place once they get to filming and even then I'm sure they'll keep fine-tuning.

But there's really no point to even start any campaign until October-ish and even then it's just better to do small teases and then increase those as filming progresses and it starts falling into place.

[DramatistDreamer]

Sometimes a discussion can become a bit too “Inside Baseball”. From what I remember, the trade papers were really the only place where you could find any information about a series this far out from production. And let’s be real…Jane Q. Public doesn’t care about the trade papers. We might, but the rest of the public could care not less.
In a previous post, I wrote that promotion before Labor Day is likely to be forgotten and lost in the shuffle—unless you are putting promo in a movie theater ahead of the latest Hollywood summer blockbuster, which is unlikely to happen with a daytime soap-they’ll never have the budget for this. Even if TV Guide were still relevant, I’d still say wait until autumn to start doling out promos, at the earliest. From reports in The Hollywood Reporter, network television is not only losing out to Netflix, both are losing attention due to YouTube and TikTok right now and during the summer, people are likely watch the least amount of network television (do people still watch Big Brother?).

 

Also, I would rather the production focus on story projections, scripts, sets and ultimately, casting. Everything else is probably a distraction until most of those things are in place.

Edited July 16, 2024 by DramatistDreamer

[Soaplovers]

I will saw that back in the 1960s, the concept of Dark Shadows took over a year between his pitch and the first episode coming together.   So I imagine that she's working behind the scene on determining what from the bible to present.. and also probably determining sets, interviewing production people, and weeding through sample scripts that are being given to her (since a lot of times you have either a try out with a few scripts, or have to submit a script you've written based on an outline given).

I saw if if it's November 2024 and we've heard nothing such as a tentative cast list, or even an exact date the show is set to debut.. then maybe be concerned a bit.

[Chris B]

I feel like the latest they could go into filming would be October due to the holiday breaks in November and December. That's if they're sticking with a January debut. News should start coming out late-August/September as we get closer to October. I'd hope they don't rush the filming part of it. It's not uncommon to miss with certain bits of casting so it would be nice to give themselves some space in case someone needs to be replaced, or if they see something isn't working on screen and they want to scrape it before it airs.

[LostinHarmony]

I stumbled across this video while watching clips of Sunset Beach on YouTube, and the 2:35 mark outlining how they would promote the show made me think of you all regarding the marketing and promotion of The Gates...

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