“Gates” surprises doubters … including its creator

“Beyond the Gates” (shown here) is near its first anniversary now, surprising many people — including its creator.
“I didn’t think anything was going to come of it,” Michele Val Jean said.
Her doubts were logical. The number of soap operas on broadcast networks had sunk from 13 to three. There hadn’t been a new one since 1999 … and that one (“Passions”) had died in 2007.
Still, Val Jean had been hired to plan an ambitious soap, set in a gated enclave for rich Black families. “I thought, ‘It’s a good little project for me to do while Covid is going down. (I’ll) make a little extra money and then go on about my business,'” she told the Television Critics Association.
But the show — 2 p.m. weekdays (1 p.m. CT and PT) on CBS and on Paramount+ — nears its anniversary (Feb. 24), drawing some praise. Entertainment Weekly put it on its 10-best-shows list, alongside one other broadcast show (“Abbott Elementary”), two cable ones and six streamers.
“Being in that category, with streamers, … that’s thrilling,” said Tamara Tunie.
She plays the matriarch, with Clifton Davis as her husband. Both are primetime veterans: He starred in “Amen” and was the intelligance chief on “Madame Secretary”; she was the medical examiner in 21 seasons of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” She’s also a soap veteran; he’s not.
“I didn’t know if I felt like working that hard,” Davis said. “Amen” had a week to do a half-hour show; soaps need an hour every weekday. “You’ve got to study,” he said, “Your weekends are no longer your own.”
Their characters provide a centerpoint of calm and warmth. But soaps are also spiced by bad behavior; at first, that was their daughter Dani.
“She started out bringing a gun to her ex-husband’s wedding,” recalled Karla Mosley, who plays her. “And breaking into his house and drinking his prized wine. I mean, she was so messy, so wonderfully messy.”
Then came a detour. “Now she is in a thriving marriage,” said Mosley (shown here with Sean Freeman). “And dealing with the news about her mother’s cancer diagnosis. She’s having to grow up again, as we do so many times in life.”
But others can fill the bad-behavior void. “We have Leslie Thomas, who’s over-the-top and through-the-roof,” Tunie said.
When that character was pregnant, we’re told, the father (Ted Richardson) paid her to get an abortion and leave town. She left, secretly had the baby (Eva) and later returned under a new name, scheming to have Eva work for Ted — even causing his assistant to have a road accident and a heart attack.
When some of this was discovered, Anita Dupree was furious. It was “the slap heard around the world,” said Tunie, who plays Anita.
Such extremes can stir a soap audience. A typical “Gates” episode has 1.56 million viewers, Nielsen says. That’s in last place among the four broadcast soaps, trailing “The Young and the Restless” (2.9 million), “The Bold and the Beautiful” (2.6) and “General Hospital” (1.9).
Still, it’s not bad. CBS says “Gates” has almost 50-percent more viewers than the previous show (“The Talk”) in that timeslot. It also says “Gates” edges “General Hospital” in the key demographic of women ages 25-54.
Much of this reflects the determination of Sheila Ducksworth. “She was the one who never lost faith,” Val Jean said.
In 2020, CBS Studios and NAACP set up a joint venture, with Ducksworth in charge. She had heard about Black enclaves near the District of Columbia and, she said, filmed about six of them. ” A lot of that (was copied for) our Fairmont Crest Country Club.”
Ducksworth worked out a deal for Val Jean to continue writing for “The Bold and the Beautiful,” while developing the overall “bible” for a new show.
“It really challenged my brain to go in totally different places,” Val Jean said. “These characters came alive on my morning walks. I’d put on my headphones and put on some music and start thinking about this family … and their secrets and scandals and how messy they were.
“And then, in the afternoon, I’d come home and I’d work on my script for ‘The Bold and the Beautiful.’ So it was a little schizophrenic.”
But it worked. With that “bible” in hand, Ducksworth got the involvement of Procter & Gamble Studios (its first new soap project since 1980) and CBS. “Beyond the Gates” debuted, catching cynics (and Val Jean) by surprise.