Beyond the Gates Is Making a Huge Mistake — And It’s Not the First Time
Ever since Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson cranked up The Emotions’ Best of My Love while driving to the Fairmont Crest Country Club, I’ve been borderline obsessed with Beyond the Gates.
From the production values to (most of) the actors, it’s reminded me of all the reasons I first fell in love with the genre. And the scripts? I can’t recall the last time a television show — let alone a soap — sounded so incredibly real (and that includes so-called reality offerings).
Have there been missteps along the way? Definitely. As much as I enjoyed the reveal that Joey’s sister is The Impaler — and the against-type casting of soap vet Ashley Jones as Heather — the plasma ring story has been more miss than hit. And while the initial reveal of Hayley’s plan to kill Bill was brilliant, her plot has left us wanting her to check that bottle of poison to see if she picked up one that was “no-action” instead of “slow-acting.”
But the show’s about to make the kind of mistake that is too big to ignore, even by those who — like us — believe it to be the best soap on the airwaves: The decision to air reruns the week of June 29 through July 3 is flat-out bad.
Sorry, but I said what I said.
This is not the first occasion on which Beyond the Gates has taken time off, and I suspect it won’t be the last. But just as I vocalized concerns last time, I’ll continue to do so moving forward. Daytime is a genre unlike any other, especially when it comes to television. While primetime, game shows, talk shows and other broadcasts can and do throw up reruns at will, the soap audience is trained to tune in every day, five days a week.
They will forgive a “classic episode” running on a holiday. But jump on social media when a soap is pre-empted by breaking news or sports, and you’ll see a whole lot of very bad words being used as fans vent.
Even worse?
When they tune in expecting new episodes and inexplicably get five days in a row of reruns. Sure, the cotillion-centric shows which kick this week off are excellent and will no doubt earn the show Emmy nods in several categories. But is an invitation to revisit the event going to get viewers to tune in… or will it see them reclaiming that hour?
Perhaps the biggest problem of all? That the last new episode before this self-imposed break didn’t offer up a slew of cliffhangers designed to absolutely guarantee we return in a week. Shanice’s jealousy and Deanna putting on a happy face at her dead daddy’s urging — the final two scenes of Friday’s episode — are fun and all, but not the kind of cliffhanger designed to have viewers anxiously ticking off the days until they can finally return to Fairmont Crest.
It’s going to be a long week without our Barrington County residents keeping us entertained. But we’ll get through it, because that’s what soap fans do. We’ve been trained to tune in tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll also remember that good things come to those who wait… like new episodes of Beyond the Gates. But don’t worry. If you need someone to remind you to tune back in on July 6th, I’ll be here, sounding the alarm.
