‘Beyond the Gates’ Preview and Black TV History, an Underdog Sports Story, New Zealand Mystery, Hunting a Killer of Hunters

The daytime drama may be an endangered network species, but CBS is bucking the trend by launching the first major-network daytime soap since Passions in 1999 with next week’s premiere of Beyond the Gates, also the first with a predominantly Black cast since 1989-91’s Generations. To whet viewers’ appetite, a weeklong series of daytime specials go behind the scenes, with Entertainment Tonight‘s Kevin Frazier and The Talk alum Sheryl Underwood hosting. The first episode peeks behind the gates of Fairmont Crest, introducing the cast and creators.

On TV: A Black History Month Special (8/7c, CBS): An Entertainment Tonight-produced special features hosts Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner in a survey of past and present Black representation on TV, including interviews with Beyond the Gates stars and Black performers on current CBS shows including The Neighborhood, NCIS, S.W.A.T., Poppa’s House, Watson, Elsbeth and Let’s Make a Deal. The special also celebrates milestones including Isabel Sanford‘s groundbreaking Emmy win for The Jeffersons, Sidney Poitier‘s history-making Oscar win, the first interracial kiss on Star Trek and All in the Family introducing TV’s first interracial couple.

An offbeat documentary reveals an obscure footnote in sports history, harking back to 1992’s legendary Olympic “Dream Team” of pro superstars including Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. What few knew at the time was that a “USA Select Team” of college players, recruited to help the Dream Team prepare for the Olympics, actually beat the pros (their only loss) in a secret scrimmage. To be fair, the “Select Team” had its fair share of future stars, including Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway and Bobby Hurley, who recall the exciting game with the help of the sole surviving VHS copy of the match.

The scenery is gorgeous, even when littered with the victims of crime, in a New Zealand crime drama airing over four weeks. Chelsie Preston Crayford stars as Anaís Mallory, a homicide detective who uproots from Sydney to return to her Queenstown, N.Z. hometown to solve cases while looking into the deaths of her sister and father. Personal baggage includes an ex-fiancé who married her ex-best friend and a mother (Under the Vines’ Rebecca Gibney) who’s keeping secrets. Mallory’s first assignment: a car that went over a cliff carrying a driver who’s been dead for three days.

FBI profiler Bex (Melissa Roxburgh) and her entourage head to Montana to track Lowe, an escaped serial killer who prefers wolves to people, hunting down and murdering hunters on land that the fugitive holds dear. Back at HQ, questions continue to swirl about whether warden Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), Bex’s ex, had prior knowledge of the Pit prison explosion that freed baddies like Lowe.

INSIDE MONDAY TV:

• The House of Hanna-Barbera (11 am/10c, MeTV Toons): A daily two-hour programming block is dedicated to the iconic cartoon characters immortalized by the Hanna-Barbera animation factory, including Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Secret Squirrel and Snagglepuss. (The Sunday block airs at 1 pm/12c.)
• Thomas Jefferson (8/7c, History): Presidents’ Day alert: A six-hour docuseries, airing through Wednesday, profiles the third U.S. president and Founding Father in all of his brilliant complexities and confounding contradictions, with dramatic recreations and commentary from historians and biographers.
• The Bachelor (8/7c, ABC): Madrid beckons Grant and the remaining 10 women with local scenery, a lesson from a matadora and a mechanical bull-riding challenge.
• All American (8/7c, The CW): Khalil (Antonio J. Bell) is sidelined as the football season gets underway at Beverly and South Crenshaw.
• Rescue: Hi-Surf (9/8c, Fox): While the Hawaii lifeguards rush to the scene of unresponsive cliff jumpers, Em (Arielle Kebbel) and Will (Adam Demos) go in search of rebound relationships. 

ON THE STREAM:

• Best Intentions (streaming on Acorn TV): A wrenching four-part British drama from Jack Thorne stars Bad Sisters‘ Sharon Horgan and Prodigal Son‘s Michael Sheen as parents whose family is fractured during a legal battle involving their daughter, who’s suffering from a life-threatening illness and whose doctor recommends withdrawing care.
• American Murder: Gabby Petito (streaming on Netflix): A three-part true-crime docuseries explores the tragic murder that made national headlines when 22-year-old Gabby was killed in 2021 by her fiancé while on a cross-country road trip.
• A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story (streaming on BritBox): Lucy Boynton stars in a four-part docudrama as the notorious nightclub hostess who in 1955 was the last woman to be hanged in the U.K. following the shooting of her abusive lover (Laurie Davidson). The story was previously filmed in 1985 as Dance With a Stranger, starring Miranda Richardson.