What Beyond the Gates’ Uses as Its Superpower

Who better than Michele Val Jean to do the thing that daytime television needed the most? She is best known for her work in soap operas and has won seven Daytime Emmy Awards and five Writers Guild of America Awards since the beginning of her career in 1989. She has also written over 2,000 episodes of various soaps, including “General Hospital,” “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and “Santa Barbara,” among others.

In other words, Michele is familiar with the business. She knows what works and what doesn’t, and she also knows exactly what is missing. Rather than continuing to toil in fictional towns created by others, Val Jean decided to make one of her own and then fill it with modern, realistic characters who are finding their way through a world very similar to the one that viewers must navigate. Once she quietly birthed the blueprint, “Beyond the Gates” was born.

BTG Combines Classic Soap Elements With a Modern Vibe

CBS

BTG centers on the Dupree family living in an affluent gated community called Fairmont Crest (modeled after DC’s Potomac area). Vernon and Anita Dupree head up the family, which includes their two daughters, Dani and Nicole, and their families. Vernon is a senator, and his grandson, Martin, is following in his footsteps in the political arena. Anita was once a popular singer in a girl group. She is working to revive her career, but some explosive secrets are in the way.

BTG embraces the classic soap elements that keep viewers coming back for more. Secrets, lies, family duplicity, and warring siblings are all playing out onscreen. Val Jean’s expertise and deep understanding of the genre have helped her, in just a few short months, to turn this into a series that feels like it has already been around for years.

The series has helped modernize the genre by featuring LGBTQIA+ relationships, adoptions, younger men dating older women, and mixed-race relationships. The fabric of Fairmont Crest doesn’t resemble the soap you used to watch with your grandmother, and that’s a good thing.

The Duprees Are the First Black Family to Anchor a Soap Opera in 34 Years

CBS

Longtime soap fans will recall a short-lived series, “Generations,” which aired on NBC from 1989 to 1991. It was considered a pioneer in the genre for working to diversify the cast by featuring a black anchor family. Since it left the air 34 years ago, soaps have often lacked strong black characters. Many have come and gone, and that is part of the problem that Val Jean set out to help rectify with the Duprees. BTG is built around them, rather than just making a little room for them.

As the storylines continue, more drama is on the horizon. “Beyond the Gates” leans into the stories that work and adds twists and turns along the way that make sense for life in Fairmont Crest. So far, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, which suggests that the CBS soap could be in for a long run. Bringing in the first new soap in over 20 years, with a diverse cast, may have seemed risky to some, but Michele Val Jean stuck to her original plan, and it is now really paying off.