Tamara Tunie is perched on the edge of her dressing room’s settee, one (expertly shaped) eyebrow cocked. Gold brushstrokes ornament her flowing black tunic; her hair is gathered in jumbo rollers ...

New York — It has been more than 25 years since “Passions,” the last new daytime soap opera to air on American network TV, debuted on NBC. And for nearly as long, Michele Val Jean and Sheila ...

“Beyond the Gates” is making history as the first-ever one-hour Black daytime soap opera and the first daytime drama since “Passions,” which premiered in 1999. But Tunie and her co-stars ...

But “Beyond the Gates” — which had its premiere on Feb. 24 — is not your grandmother’s soap opera. It’s a show centered around a smart, affluent, powerful Black family, one with ...

Kimberly Doebereiner (from left), Daphnée Duplaix, Tamara Tunie, Sheila Ducksworth, and Vladimir Duthiers attend Making Soap Opera History with CBS's "Beyond the Gates" at The Paley Museum on ...

The first thing viewers of “Beyond the Gates” see is a black Mercedes gliding past manicured lawns and stately estates. The sedan pulls up at an elegant country club and the valets come out.

Sometimes something old can feel refreshingly new. The soap opera is a genre older than the invention of the television, dating all the way back to radio serials of the early 20th century.

It was at her house, after school, that I had a glimpse into her world as I met the greats that graced the airwaves — Diahann Carroll as Dominique Deveraux on the soap opera “Dynasty” and ...