"I've been a lover of soap operas since I was 10 years old, and I've always felt that there was a huge void in soap operas, which is just beyond apparent," Ducksworth says.Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

Tunie, whom fans will recognize from her years on “Law & Order: SVU,” has returned to her soap opera roots in CBS’s “Beyond the Gates,” the first daytime serial centered on a Black family in the history of U.S. broadcast television. Premiering Monday, it chronicles the dramas of the Dupree family, the de facto rulers of a tony gated community.

Soap operas, or melodramas with massive ensemble casts, have been a staple in popular culture for nearly a century. Though long-running soaps like “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “General Hospital” have dominated day-time television for decades,