CBS' 'Beyond the Gates' is juicy soap-opera gold: Review
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'Beyond the Gates' makes history as first soap with mostly Black cast
"Beyond the Gates" is taking a bet on reviving the soap opera genre with a mostly Black cast.
Sometimes something old can feel refreshingly new.
The soap opera is a genre older than the invention of the television, dating all the way back to radio serials of the early 20th century. It's also, in the eyes of many, a dying genre, with several longtime series sunsetting over the past decade and a half as viewership of traditional broadcast TV has declined.
But never count out a classic, because a new soap is on the air this winter, and it's chock full of rich people problems, face slaps, secret love children, steamy sex scenes and big cliffhangers. And that's just in the first week.
CBS' "Beyond the Gates" (Weekdays, 2 EST/1 PST, ★★★ out of four) is both the first new soap since NBC's "Passions" premiered in 1999 and the first ever with a predominantly Black cast. Produced in part by Procter & Gamble (the company that helped invent and name the first soap operas), "Gates" replaces panel/talk show "The Talk" and jumps into the daytime TV fray feet-first. It feels both old-fashioned and newfangled, with all the trappings of your favorite soaps in slightly different packaging. In the hands of soap veteran Michele Val Jean and producer Sheila Ducksworth, "Gates" may have enough melodrama in its fictional community of Fairmont Crest to go the distance.
More: How 'Beyond the Gates,' network TV's first largely Black soap, is 'rooted in reality'
The show follows the multigenerational members of the wealthy Dupree family, the first family of an affluent Maryland enclave headed by matriarch Anita (Tamara Tunie), a former singer, and her husband Vernon (Clifton Davis), a former politician and civil rights leader. The Duprees are all over the gated community: Their grandson Martin (Brandon Claybon) is the local congressman, their daughter Nicole (Daphnee Duplaix) is an award-winning doctor and another daughter, Dani (Karla Mosley), is a beloved socialite and former model. It's Dani who's at the center of the drama at the series' start, after her husband Bill (Timon Kyle Durrett) unceremoniously left her for much younger Hayley (Marquita Goings), a friend of Bill and Dani's daughters Naomi (Arielle Prepetit) and Chelsea (RhonniRose Mantilla). Bill and Hayley's forthcoming nuptials at Farimont's storied country club are torturing Dani, who vows to torture her ex and his new bride-to-be.
Yes, "Gates" starts soapy and gets soapier with each episode, at least after a bit of a breaking-in period. Coming into the premiere of "Gates" will feel weird for quite a few soap fans, for the simple reason that not many were around for the first episodes of the likes of NBC's "Days of Our Lives" and ABC's "General Hospital" in the mid-20th century. The first few "Gates" episodes have to introduce a huge cast of characters, and to facilitate this citizens of Fairmont Crest call each other by full name and title frequently to ease the audience into the complicated web of relationships ("Hello, nephew!" "Andre Richardson, how are you?").
It can be a little stilted. But the necessities of introductions and exposition are dealt with quickly, and by this week's fourth and fifth episodes, "Gates" is chugging along like we've known the Duprees for decades. The short, 37-minute episodes (leaving lots of time for commercials) pack in the drama and plot twists, and most of the actors settle into their roles quickly. Tunie is a seasoned soap veteran and a magnetic presence, clearly the matriarch both the Dupree family needs and the steady leader "Gates" requires. If some elements of the show are shaky or confusing (many of the characters look too close together in age to play parents and their children, for instance), it's easy to forgive "Gates" the same way viewers have forgiven the whole canon of soaps for decades. This is not a class of TV known for its devotion to realism or logic.
Despite all the history it's making, "Gates" isn't setting out to be revolutionary. If you don't like soaps in general, this is not the show that will change your mind. What it does offer that's new is a cast that reflects more of the genre's viewership and a unique perspective, plus some really great fashion moments, including Tunie rocking a curly silver wig in every scene like she's on a Paris runway.
It's just the kind of comforting, heightened, sometimes-silly drama that can get you through a long day. And maybe restore your faith in the style of TV people have been watching for nearly a century.
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