An entire generation has been born, grown up, and experienced quarter-life crises since the last time a daytime soap opera was launched on network television (and even longer since a soap featured a predominantly Black cast.) But that’s finally changing.

CBS released a trailer Wednesday for a new daytime drama called Beyond the Gates, which will premiere on the network and stream on Paramount+ beginning in February. It’s the first black-led soap since Generations, which debuted 35 years ago, running from 1989 through 1991.

The official description of the show reads, “Beyond the Gates is set in a leafy Maryland suburb just outside of Washington, D.C., and in one the most affluent African American counties in the United States. Here you’ll find a posh gated community with winding tree-lined streets and luxurious mansions to call home. At the center of this community are the Duprees, a powerful and prestigious multi-generational family that is the very definition of Black royalty. But behind these pristine walls and lush, manicured gardens are juicy secrets and scandals waiting to be uncovered. And those that live outside these gates are watching closely. These are the places where our characters live, love, work and play. Those who have ‘made it’ and those who haven’t are all trying to navigate life … and some with more grace than others.”

The stacked cast includes Clifton Davis and Tamara Tunie as the patriarch and matriarch of the Dupree family, Vernon and Anita. Vernon is described as a “gentle, humble and generous” former senator, while Anita used to be a famous singer.

The couple’s two daughters Dr. Nicole Dupree Richardson (Daphnee Duplaiz) — a “high-achieving and competitive philanthropist and psychiatrist” whose life seems perfect from the outside — and Dani Dupree (Karla Mosley) — a “former model turned momager who gave up her career for love” and “has always marched to the beat of her own drum.”

The last time a new daytime soap was introduced on the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), it was 1999, when Passions began its eight-year run on NBC.

Michele Val Jean, a screenwriter for The Bold and the Beautiful since 2012, serves as writer, showrunner, and executive producer of Beyond the Gates. The show was developed and produced by CBS Studios and NAACP Venture, led by Sheila Ducksworth, in partnership with P&G Studios, a division of Procter & Gamble.

Once Beyond the Gates hits the air, the number of daytime dramas currently broadcasting will grow to five, with three appearing on CBS,  The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and one on ABC, General Hospital. NBC’s The Days of Our Lives is still in production, but only available for streaming on Peacock.

Soap operas went from enormous popularity starting in the 1940s through the ’80s, but audiences dropped off dramatically as the programs’ main audience, women who worked in the home, began to decline. Low viewership and expense contributed to the dwindling number of soap operas, as networks realized that talk, reality and game shows were infinitely cheaper to produce than hour-long dramas with large casts that aired every weekday with no reruns.

Beyond the Gates debuts on CBS on February 24th, 2025.