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In a world of reality TV, it looks like there’s still room for soap operas. CBS’ new soap, Beyond the Gates, has debuted with blockbuster ratings for its predominantly Black cast.
Per Deadline, Nielsen ratings for the first week averted 5.2M unique viewers, to tie with the long-running soap opera General Hospital. It scored higher than GH in the coveted 25-54 demo and had 55% Black viewership, ahead of The Young and The Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.
Beyond the Gates stars Tamara Tunie, 65, who many know from her years on The Young & the Restless and on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as Anita Dupree. Her co-star, veteran actor Clifton Davis, 79, plays her husband, Vernon Dupree. Queen Sugar star Timon Kyle Durrett and Playboy Playmate turned soap opera actress Daphnée Duplaix are also part of the cast.
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Beyond the Gates is the first soap opera with a predominantly Black cast since Generations which ran on NBC from 1989-1991. Gates is the first new soap opera on TV in 25 years.
It centers around the affluent Dupree family who live in Maryland. As you might imagine, given the genre, shenanigans will ensue. Writer Michelle Val Jean, who was also instrumental behind the scenes for Generations, is Beyond the Gates’s creator, producer, and showrunner.
She says she wanted a soap opera focused on a Black family that avoided the usual stereotypes.
“We wanted to have a show on the air that spoke to a different side of the Black experience,” Val Jean told Entertainment Weekly in January. “Not the downtrodden, not the ghettoized. We wanted to show rich, Black people doing messy things.”
Tunie, who has worked on TV, film, and Broadway throughout her five-decade career, said starring on the show has been a unique experience.
“You know, so having spent so many years in television, where I have more often than not been the only Black person in the building, you know, it’s very, very, very comforting to walk into a space where you recognize, where you see yourself in the people that are working with,” she told CBS News.
Beyond the Gates airs on CBS on weekdays at 2 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. P, and also streams on Paramount.
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