I know some of you may have been wondering where the Performer of the Week recognition is, or maybe you haven't. To be honest, I’ve been struggling these past couple of weeks with narrowing down the standout performance. Let me be clear — this is not to say the actors haven’t been giving their best, because they absolutely have. They’ve been working hard to bring their material to life, but for me, nothing has truly stood out, nothing has captivated me in a way that has made me want to shout out a specific performance. A lot of this has to do with the storylines they’ve been given.
So, this week, I’m going to do something a little different.
What I’ve seen that has truly stood out, worked hard, and earned recognition would be the cast, production, writers, social media team, PR team, and everyone involved with Beyond the Gates, the first new soap opera (or serialized storytelling) to be produced in 25 years. This is an incredible accomplishment.
We all have our own stories of when soaps like Guiding Light, As the World Turns, All My Children, One Life to Live, and others were canceled. The shows we watched with our parents and grandparents are sorely missed. Currently, we only have three soap operas on national TV and one that’s streaming—untilBeyond the Gates premieres.
The excitement is palpable, especially knowing this new soap opera will center around a Black family with a diverse cast, writers, and production team. That means so much. Over the past few months, I’ve been consistently bombarded with commercials, interviews, and social media posts about Beyond the Gates, reminding me of a time when networks actually promoted their shows. We’ve seen ads during major events, including the Super Bowl and the Grammys. The actors, especially Ms. Tamara Tunie, have appeared on late-night talk shows, CBS Mornings, and Sunday Morning. They've used social media to its full potential, even hosting screenings with fans and a special 30-minute segment after The Bold and the Beautiful. CBS is bringing back promotion like it used to, and it’s amazing to see!
Beyond the Gates, along with CBS, the NAACP, Procter & Gamble, the cast, the creators, and the entire production team, has been putting in serious work to ensure the soap opera genre isn’t dead, and that new life is coming to it.
Soaps have laid the groundwork for primetime TV with their cliffhangers, interwoven storytelling, and much more. It’s time the genre is respected again, and the soaps currently airing could also benefit from this renewed approach. They too could see a resurgence with new, exciting stories and the kind of promotion that engages viewers.
So, this week, Performance of the Week goes to Beyond the Gates and CBS, along with all the incredible teams behind it, for their tireless promotion and excitement for this new soap opera. Your work is bringing the genre back in a way that means so much to all of us, the multi-generational viewers who have cherished soaps for so long.
Thank you and congratulations on this exciting new era!
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