My View From Beyond the Gates by Dan J Kroll

It’s not easy when our favorite character is going through some stuff. But it’s not personal — in fact, it’s probably just the opposite.  You never want to get to a point where your favorite character (or couple) is just background filler.

Take Eva and her damaged-beyond-repair liver. There are some fans who insist the writers hate Eva. Why else would they do this to her? Others think it’s Kat that...

Change is the only constant. And that is definitely true on the soaps. A tornado brought significant change to Fairmont Crest, but it's the changes that cannot be seen that I am most worried about.

Marriages might be about to crumble. Family ties could be severed. And it's not entirely clear that everyone will survive their injuries.

Check out this week's My View From Beyond the Gates podcast by Soap Central founder Dan J Kroll. It'...

There's a song from the 80s that says seasons change, feelings change. But do they really? Do you ever really get over the betrayal of a loved one? Yes, time marches... but something as simple as an "on this day" photo on your phone can set off a wave of emotions you'd thought were gone.

A lot of us had a wave of emotions when we allllllllmost learned the identity of the Impaler. I have some theories... and most of them are wild. So...

Some day we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun. It's often hard to believe that when the life seems so full of clouds. And the sky is definitely overcast at Fairmont Crest.

We're told to be kind because we never know what someone is going through. This week I decided to take a look at what some of the Fairmont Crest (and Fairmont Crest adjacent) residents have been going through and how they're feeling. And o-o-h child, it's ki...

Nowadays, it doesn't matter if what someone is saying is true. If they can convince enough people they're speaking the truth, the damage is already done. And it's often impossible to un-ring that bell.

That was the case with Anastasia and her venom spewing. She managed to get Samantha to doubt her own self-worth. Leslie's past actions have people convinced that she's doing wrong even when she isn't. And those are just a couple of t...

One of the criticisms I’ve seen about Beyond the Gates on social media is that the good guys never seem to win. Are the smooth criminals of Fairmont Crest really winning? We have marriage-blower-upper-and-part-time-attempted-murder Leslie “LSD” Thomas strutting around Fairmont Crest with a bottomless trust fund. Hayley, also a marriage-blower-upper, has been slowly, eeeeeeeeeever soooooo sloooooooowly, trying to k...

This was more of a hangnail kind of week on Beyond the Gates than a huge heart-shattering problem one. There were some memorable plot moments that maybe seem to be setting up drama ahead. But as we inch closer to May, things were decidedly low key.

I mean, Grayson might argue that a lab tech blood smuggler getting jabbed in the gut isn't very low key. I'd probably agree.

It's a look at all of the soapy drama on the CBS soap opera Be...

It was week of wall-to-wall good news. CBS announced that Beyond the Gates was picked up for another two years, Anita Dupree learned that her tumor had shrunk, Kat and Eva temporarily buried the hatchet over some birthday cake, Nicole mostly patched things up with BFF Vanessa and had a moment of nostalgia with Ted, and Bill and Dani continued to thrive as sort of friends.

Yes, it was a great week for everyone and I could n...

Forget love in the afternoon. Beyond the Gates is giving us messy in the midday and I am here for it. In this Beyond the Gates commentary for the week ending April 3, 2026, Dan J Kroll looks at the very messy double date between Beyond the Gates characters Vanessa, Joey, Nicole, and Carlton. Plus, are the walls closing in on Hayley or will she find a way to keep her grift alive. And if she does go down -- not like that! -- who will...