Is Beyond the Gates Sufficiently Crazy?
And please, make some dating suggestions for Jennifer Lopez that do NOT involve Ben Affleck.
Two weeks ago, CBS launched Beyond the Gates, the first new soap opera in 26 years and the first predominantly Black daytime drama since the short-lived Generations in 1989. As your unofficial soap opera correspondent, former Soap Opera Digest subscriber, and general TV crank, of course I have been binging the hell out of it.
I mention this a lot, but: I have always loved soaps. As a kid, I loved coming home from school and watching Neighbours at 5:35 p.m. — but if I was home sick and got to see it at the first 1:35 p.m. airing? Gold1. When we visited my grandparents in the States every summer, I reveled in two hours of their stories every weekday — they were One Life To Live and General Hospital buffs — and then once we moved back and onward through college, I systematically sampled them all. Because why stop at one? There was so much happening. Shawn Douglas Brady stuck in a mine! Reva Shayne, a clone! Frisco, back from the dead! Vivian Alamain burying Carly alive but with a speaker i…