My View From Beyond the Gates: The Worst of BTG 2025

It’s a look back at some of the things we’d like to forget about Beyond the Gates in 2025 — the characters, stories, and moments that just didn’t quite hit the mark. It’s a special year-end commentary by Soap Central founder Dan J Kroll.

I like to wrap up the year with a look back at everything that happened in the previous twelve months. It’s been a tradition since I started writing about soaps way back in the 1900s – the 1990s to be a little more exact.

Even though we didn’t quite get a full year of shows (there were “just” 200 episodes), there was still plenty to write about since Beyond the Gates premiered on February 24, 2025. If you’ve missed any of my weekly columns (and the fun graphics that I create to go with each one), you can check them out here.

I like to wrap up the year with an airing of grievances. So this week’s column is all about the Worst of Beyond the Gates 2025. It’s one last chance to vent about characters and stories that just didn’t work. That way, we can start the new calendar year with a clean slate. Just in case it needs to be said, I absolutely love Beyond the Gates. I wouldn’t watch if I didn’t. This column isn’t meant to “trash” the show. It’s just pointing out some of the things that I didn’t like for one reason or another.

And fear not — there was a lengthy column about all the things that did work posted last week. So, if you want to end the year with positive energy, you will want to make sure that you read the Best of Beyond the Gates 2025 column.

Worst In Class: Before the Gates Even Opened

I don’t typically celebrate my birthday — it’s an only child of a single parent thing, I think — but I definitely celebrated mine in 2024. After years of writing about soap operas being canceled, I never thought that I’d get to write about a new one being launched — at least not on network television.

So March 6, 2024, was a celebratory day here at Kroll Manor. Until I made the mistake of reading emails that started filling up my Soap Central In box. I was stunned and disgusted to see how many people derided the creation of a “DEI soap opera.” I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was like someone stole my birthday cake and stabbed me in the heart with that cake server thing.

“I won’t be watching that.” “Why do they get a whole show?” “It should air on BET or Netflix, not CBS.” “This show won’t even last a year.”

These are just some of the hateful, racist messages that came before a single casting announcement, mention of any kind of storyline, or even a firm indication that the show had been picked up. All that was mentioned was that CBS had “entered into a partnership with the NAACP to develop a brand-new soap called The Gates based around the lives of ‘a wealthy Black family in a posh, gated community.'”

By the time more of the nitty gritty details about Beyond the Gates started coming out, I had already reached an agreement to sell Soap Central. I had originally wanted to stick around for at least a year to, among other things, cover the launch of the new soap. For reasons that I am unable to discuss yet, I ultimately decided that it was best that I step away entirely from the site and, by extension, soap journalism and quietly retire.

Then I started to see the coverage that some of the soap media was giving Beyond the Gates. Much of what was posted was just a rehashing of press releases. In some cases, it was word-for-word postings of press releases. There was no joy or excitement, and that didn’t sit well with my spirit.

So I decided to end my very short-lived retirement and to start writing about the show in the same way that I would have if I were still in charge of a soap opera web site. I haven’t quite gotten to the level I’d like and think that fans deserve, and I apologize for that. Hopefully in 2026, I’ll be able to gain access to the cast and creatives and bring interviews and other fun things to this site to celebrate the show that we all love.

Character Flaws: Worst Beyond the Gates Characters

I have always been reluctant to create “Worst Actor/Actress” categories when I do year-end columns. I don’t like the negativity that often comes attached with that type of critique. So instead of focusing on real-life people, I’m going to focus my attention on the fictional characters that we see on-screen. Plus, I don’t know about you, but more often than not I tend to like actors even when I don’t like their characters.

Here are my thoughts on characters that rubbed me the wrong way or somehow got on my bad side in 2025.

WORST CHARACTER: Ted Richardson

Soap operas are unlike any other form of entertainment. The seemingly neverending work schedule often results in on-screen changes needing to be made. Recasts have become part of the soap viewing experience, with many of us anxiously anticipating the “the role of… is now being played by…” voiceover.

In its first season (I’d usually use the word “year,” but it seems TV execs prefer now to use the word “season.”) Beyond the Gates had just a single recast: Ted Richardson.

The reaction to the recast had been mixed, though recent events may have changed that. With rampant online scuttlebutt about why Maurice Johnson exited the role, neither Johnson nor the show offered so much as a hint about why the decision was made. It should be noted that shows typically do not issue statements, but for some reason the silence on the Ted recast seemed to make Beyond the Gates fans unhappy.

Some fans have felt that “new” Ted, Keith D. Robinson, was not the right fit — kind of like the ill-fitting clothes that Robinson was wearing for his first few weeks on the show. To be clear: the problem here is not Robinson.

When the role of Ted was recast, it seemed like the character morphed into a new person. For whatever reason, Ted spent weeks holed up in a hotel room. He made little effort to win back the woman that he claimed to love. While trying to give Eva the life that she’d never had, Ted seemed to forget that he had two other children. His mopey, woe-is-me behavior led me to giving him the nickname Eeyoredore – a combination of his name and the equally pessimistic killjoy Winnie the Pooh character.

It wasn’t until Nicole served Ted with divorce papers that Ted finally started to come to life. He drank too much and slept with Leslie again. He nearly clobbered his business partner and Nicole’s wannabe suitor Carlton Fitzgerald. He got trapped in an elevator with Shanice and was suddenly splitting catfish and cobbler with her at Orphey Gene’s.

With the Ted pendulum swinging back in the other direction, I’m hopeful that 2026 will be a better year for the plastic surgeon. Now if we can only get him to remember that he has two daughters…

ICKIEST CHARACTER: Tomás Navarro

There are several occupations that come to mind when I think of jobs that are saddled with unfortunate stereotypes. At the top of the list is probably the used car salesperson. A close second is the ambulance-chasing, sleazeball lawyer.

Beyond the Gates has found that stereotype in Tomás Navarro.

Everything that Tomás does seems slimy. Look at the way he tried to rationalize wanting to have sex with Eva in her hotel room. Tomás made some gross legal argument that since he and Kat weren’t technically exclusive, it meant that he could sleep with anyone he wanted – even his not-technically-exclusive-girlfriend’s-half-sister. Later, he made a similar argument two-point-three-seconds after he and Kat called their relationship quits.

Tomás’ true love is his career — and there is nothing wrong with that. What is not okay is how Tomás is trying to use his relationship with Kat to better his professional career. Bill Hamilton made it quite clear that Tomás having a committed and happy relationship would be a fast pass to being named a partner at the law firm. Almost immediately, Tomás was asking Kat to move in with him. When she politely declined, Tomas ramped up his pressure campaign.

I’m not saying that Tomás deserved to have his penis broken, but… I doubt there is anything that would get me on board with this Tomás and Kat relationship. Free Kat.

I also don’t know if there is anything at this point that would make me like Tomás. Maybe he needs to embrace the fact that he’s an ass. He can drop the nice guy schtick and morph into Bill’s Mini-Me because that seems to be what he wants to be. I also wouldn’t be upset if Bill set up a branch of his law firm in Puerto Rico and asked Tomás to move back home to run it.

WORST COUPLE AND LOVE TRIANGLE: Andre, Ashley, and Derek

It will probably not come as a surprise that I am naming Derek Baldwin and Ashley Morgan as the least successful Beyond the Gates pairing of 2025. I spent a good chunk of time scouring the Internet and I couldn’t find a single fan who liked them together.

So how did a couple that should have worked go so terribly wrong?

We were told that Ashley and Derek were the perfect couple, but I never felt the love. The only one who did seemed to be Ashley’s mom, Jan, who went as far as to give the couple the smoosh name Dashley. We were told that Ashley and Derek had hopes and dreams and plans of marriage. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.

What’s odd to me is that I only seemed to find Ashley and Derek interesting when they were fighting — and that’s never a good sign. I liked that Ashley and Derek had conflict when they moved in together. That is something that actually felt real to me and that could have been fun to explore. I also was weirdly entertained by Ashley rejecting Derek’s marriage proposal.

For a while, I thought that Derek was the dud in the Dashley relationship. Then something unexpected happened: Shanice and Derek sorta kinda dated and, suddenly, he was interesting. It was like he had a personality infusion. Ditto for Derek when he is around fellow firefighter Sheryl.

Ashley moved on, too, and started something with celebrity photographer Andre Richardson. I think the writers were trying to create two different love triangles — one with Andre, Ashley, and Derek, and another with Andre, Ashley, and Dani Dupree. Neither worked. In fact, the only thing that did work was Dani flinging endless zingers about how boring and wrong Ashley was for Andre. Ashley was compared to unseasoned chicken and vanilla ice cream.

The heart wants what it wants, and, for some reason, Andre contemplated settling down with Ashley. He brought Paris — one of my favorite places on Earth — to Ashley and she somehow even made the City of Light snoozy. Thankfully Andre came to his senses and chose to follow his heart toward Dani.

I might be one of a handful of people on the Internet that doesn’t hate Ashley. I think Ashley is at her best when she’s single. She has good interaction with her patients, co-workers, and friends. If I were Ashley’s friend, I’d tell her that she needs to spend the next year focusing on herself and not even thinking about another romantic relationship. Of course, this a soap and I think it’s a safe bet to say Ashley will probably be booed up before spring.

MOST DISTRACTING CHARACTER: Peaches

Watching soap operas often requires us to suspend belief, sometimes for a few moments and sometimes in perpetuity. What genre – other than James Bond films — has people trying to freeze the world and villains coming back from the dead more often than people change their socks?!

While I like the character of Peaches, I just cannot get past the fact that Peaches is a 40-something actress in a gray wig playing a 70-year-old. The actress, I believe, is younger than her on-screen daughter.

Yes, we also have 20somethings playing teenagers, but that’s par for the course in television and film. Some of the high school “kids” on Stranger Things are old enough in real life to have graduated from college and be nearly done with grad school.

When This Is Us had Mandy Moore play mom to actors that were nearly her age, I believed it because the makeup department (and maybe the special effects department) made her look like she was a senior citizen. That has not been the case with Peaches.

On top of that, Peaches’ storyline is also a bit off-putting. I thought that her storyline would be an “end of life” story, where Peaches tried to convince Leslie to allow her to die. Instead, Ted found a surprise clinical trial and was able to get Peaches enrolled overnight.

MOST ANNOYING ACCENT: Pamela Curtis

For the life of me, I just cannot get past Pamela’s weird Madonnaesque accent. You know, that vaguely European, high society accent that isn’t a real or regional accent.

I don’t know if the accent was a choice made by Emmy winner Cady McClain to help illustrate Pamela’s well-to-do-ness or if she was instructed to come up with an accent by the show’s producers or directors. There have been times that some of Pamela’s antics have been funnier because they don’t seem like something the hoity-toity Pamela might do. The accent, though, is an unnecessary distraction.

I have noticed that the accent has… changed since Pamela’s early appearances. Maybe we are edging ever closer to the accent mysteriously disappearing. If it did, trust me when I say that no one would send out a search party to track it down.

If it’s any comfort, McClain’s former on-screen All My Children love Michael E. Knight (Tad Martin; now Martin Grey, General Hospital) had an equally annoying accent in his new role on GH. Instead of Madonna, though, Knight sounded more like fried chicken peddler Colonel Sanders. I don’t know where Martin went to lose his accent, but I secretly hope Pamela went there for the holidays.

You Are Making A Scene: Worst Storylines

Unlike critical darling streaming soaps that have ten episodes per season (and then sometimes take years off before the next season), soap operas crank out 200 or more episodes each year. With that volume of content, it’s impossible for every episode to be perfect or for every storyline to be golden.

These are storylines that for one reason or another were not among my favorites in 2025.

WORST STORYLINE THAT NEVER WAS: Hamilton versus Hamilton

One of the storylines that I was most looking forward to was Bill and Naomi squaring off in court. We’d been told how Naomi grew up having mock trial arguments with her dad. When several women from Bill’s law firm were poised to sue over sexual harassment by a partner, the stage was set for the two legal eagles to square off in the courtroom. It was going to be the trial of the century.

Then… nothing.

Did Naomi back down because she was afraid she’d lose? I understand jittery nerves, but every lawyer loses at some point in their career. Was Naomi worried about irrevocably damaging her relationship with her dad? Maybe, but by that point in time she’d already told Bill that he wasn’t her father anymore. Did Naomi suddenly decide that only certain people deserve justice? If so, then she should not be a lawyer. A lot of reasons were given, but no explanation was good enough.

This was a storyline that seemingly every Beyond the Gates fan wanted. I’ve yet to hear from a viewer who didn’t want to see Bill and Naomi square off in court. What happened with this storyline was the equivalent of Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown.

I’m sure there was a reason for the big fake out. With Beyond the Gates originally only getting the green light for one season, it’s possible that storylines were limited by the availability of sets. Why create an entire courtroom scene if there was only going to be a single court case in the first season? Perhaps a protracted court case would have messed with the flow and pace of other storylines. Or maybe the show just didn’t want to be a courtroom show.

Whatever the reason, I do hope that we get courtroom activity in 2026 – and it would be great if we finally get that Bill versus Naomi courtroom battle.

WORST: Leslie Gets Away With Everything and Has Limitless Cash

As I said in my Best of Beyond the Gates column, every soap needs a villain. Beyond the Gates is, um, blessed with an abundance of them. There’s the now-jailed Allison Bailey who earned my pick as Best Villain. There’s Joey Armstrong who does villainy stuff, but is more just a bad guy than an out-and-out villain. Ditto for Bill Hamilton, who many people on social media told me was their pick for Best Villain.

Then there is Leslie. Or is it Sherry? Or maybe she’s just plain old Dana today. I call her LSD because it covers all the bases, all of her aliases, and it pretty much describes her trippy antics. Leslie is a gem of a soap villain because she’s funny, wacky, mean, and at least a little crazy.

Trisha Mann-Grant is perfect for the role. When Leslie needs to be “out there,” Mann-Grant cranks up the craziness to 100. When Leslie gets backed into a corner, her shade level gets set to “solar eclipse.” When Leslie gets hurt, she lashes out at anyone around – including her own daughter – and makes sure that they hurt even more than her. We have, on at least a few occasions, even seen Leslie’s softer side. Mann-Grant is one of the most riveting performers on daytime.

The issue that I have had with Leslie is that she’s the DJ Khaled of the DMV. All she does is win, win, win, no matter what. And that, quite frankly, is more than a little tiring.

LSD ran Laura Peterson off the road and nearly killed her. When that didn’t take, she snuck into Laura’s hospital and nearly killed her by injecting her IV with potassium. Leslie blew up Ted and Nicole’s marriage in a very public way. She lied to her daughter about her daughter’s father for decades. Leslie comes and goes as she pleases, torments the entire Dupree family, and still menaces Laura.

She’s done all of these things (and probably more) with no repercussions. In fact, she was actually rewarded for her bad behavior with a seemingly bottomless pot of trust fund gold. No, the dirty deeds and trust fund are not directly connected, but in the minds of many viewers the two are inextricably linked.

The result of Leslie getting away scot-free with so many things has fans souring on the character. In the beginning, fans seemed to look forward to LSD’s appearances. Now, a lot are calling for her to either be written out for good or sent on an around the world cruise that will keep her off the canvas for the better part of the show’s second season.

There is still the possibility that Marcel Malone could be the one to take her down, but viewers already seem resigned to the fact that Leslie will somehow find a way out of the detective’s grasp… or maybe into his grasp in an entirely different way. Admittedly, the idea of LSD and Malone coupling up into some sort of twisted evildoer partnership is kind of appealing, but before fans will truly be able to embrace her next devilish plot, Leslie Thomas needs to be held accountable for something. Anything. I’d even settle for a parking ticket at this point.

And since I mentioned the trust, it sure seems like Leslie has a limitless supply of cash. We’ve never been told just how much money was in the trust that Anita set up. We did see that Leslie got a check for a cool million dollars as her first disbursement from the trust with the promise of much more of that to come.

The problem is, Leslie has agreed to pay double the asking price for the Jarvis house, dropped a bunch of money to then knock the house down, and then started building a new house. But wait — there’s more! She has also promised a huge chunk of change to get a building named after her at the country club, bought the apartment building she lived in to give Eva a place to live, and agreed in principal to fund a free clinic.

I know it makes for a classic good versus evil story to have LSD be able to go penny-to-penny with the Duprees, but at some point the endless supply of money becomes unbelievable. If Leslie can’t (or won’t) be carted off to jail for her wrongdoing, maybe she can completely drain her bank account and have to become a “normal” person again. That great humbling could provide an interesting next chapter for her.

WORST REFORMATION: June

I’ve had a rocky relationship with the character of June. Initially, her attitude turned me off. I didn’t like the way that she repeatedly rejected Naomi and Jacob’s efforts to help her. After speaking to some friends who work with people experiencing homelessness, I came to realize that they way June was written was pretty spot-on to what happens in real life.

June had her moments of greatness. When she tried to pass off an As the World Turns storyline involving Tamara Tunie’s character (Anita Dupree; then-Jessica Griffin on ATWT) as her own, I started to like June. I even became worried about her when she believed that her Monopoly money was actual legal tender.

From the moment that June started talking about the two small children in the photograph that meant so much to her, I knew those kids had to be Tyrell and Samantha. It took a while, but eventually my suspicions were confirmed. I was outraged with how Naomi handled getting the details of a private/closed adoption, even if things did all seem to work out okay in the end.

My initial fear was that June (or June’s sister Regina) was going to try to fight for custody of the kids and take them away from Martin and Smitty.

In just about six months, June has gotten a job, has almost unfettered access to her biological children, and it seems that all is right in her world. Well, almost everything. I don’t foresee her being named Employee of the Month at Orphey Gene’s any time soon.

I’m happy for her and I am happy for Tyrell and Samantha. But I’m not happy for viewers. Fixing June came too easily. We have no idea if she’s regularly seeing a therapist or if she’s on any kind of medication. Is she in some sort of support group like Narcotics Anonymous? I’m not even entirely sure that we know where June is living at the moment.

Again, I’m glad that things have seemingly worked out for June, but I do think seeing some of June’s struggle would have made for better, more realistic — and even educational — story.

WORST STORYLINE FAKE OUT: Vernon and Sharon’s “Affair”

Did anyone believe for a second that Vernon and Sharon were really having an affair? I know I didn’t.

What made it even more annoying to me was that the writers were so determined to make us believe that those two were knocking boots that the dialogue became heavy-handed and unnatural. You know those informercials where people somehow don’t know how to crack an egg or measure sugar and make catastrophic messes? That’s how the dialogue was.

Plus, a lot of viewers still had lingering questions about whether or not Vernon might be Leslie’s father. That hasn’t been disproven at this point, but I do think it was one of the show’s infamous red herrings to get all of us scurrying to social media to share theories.

On top of that, having this faux affair percolating while Anita was facing a medical crisis was not the best look.

I suppose the end sort of justifies the means, but let’s not try to tarnish Vernon and Anita’s marriage again any time soon.

WORST VISUALS: An Incomplete Set

When Beyond the Gates launched, viewers (myself included) were wowed by the beautiful sets that the show had created. They were realistic with an unparalleled level of detail and thought put into each set. The sets are among the best sets I’ve ever seen in daytime.

That said, now that we’re nearly a year into the show’s run, it’s become obvious that there are some sets that really need to be added.

Why do we only ever see Naomi and Jacob’s bedroom?

We know that Joey is a multi-hyphenate mobster. For someone with such a sprawling enterprise, the secret VIP backroom of his gambling parlor (that we never see) is… very lackluster.

The hospital is another spot that could use a little fluffing up. Why does it seem like all of the hospital action takes place in the same location? No wonder Shanice knows all the gossip – anyone and everyone who enters the hospital has to pass by her nurses’ station.

While grumbling about “missing” sets might seem picky (and I know that much of this probably had to do with budget and planning for the first season of the show), it is something that can take the viewer out of the action. It’s also me being a little greedy. I think the set designers have done such an amazing job with the sets that we’ve scene, er, seen that I want even more.

WORST PRODUCTION CHANGE: Stuck Inside

In the first few weeks of Beyond the Gates episodes, we had quite a few outside-the-studio scenes. Naomi and Bill had words outside. Jacob and Malone were in a car spying on Joey Armstrong. Randy and Doug had some outside conversations in a vehicle. The confrontation between Martin, Vernon, and KKKenneth and his brother looked to be filmed on a dirt road somewhere outside of the studio limits.

But there has been nothing since. While we do get establishing shots of the exterior of places like the Dupree mansion and the country club, we get nothing that shows us that Fairmont Crest is near the nation’s capital. There have been no Lincoln Memorial flyovers, no distant shots of the Capitol, nothing of people hustling and bustling on the streets of Georgetown.

We also didn’t get so much as a random scene of Los Angeles when Dani and Andre were on their honeymoon. With all the mention of Forrester Creations, surely the folks at The Bold and the Beautiful could have loaned Beyond the Gates some of their footage to use.

The same applies to some of the big events that the show has thrown over the past few months. Chelsea’s fashion farewell was supposed to be a high-profile event, but it ended up being held in the country club with about a half-dozen people in attendance.

WORST VIEWER PARTICIPATION: Product Non-Placement

For a show that has so much product placement, it’s shocking that Beyond the Gates doesn’t have a merch shop. Fans of The Bold and the Beautiful and The Young and the Restless can buy t-shirts and coffee mugs. But BTG fans? We’re out of luck.

Yes, fans are able to buy real world versions of ChelseaKat handbags, but not all of us use or need a purse. What about those of us who like to cook and want an Orphey Gene’s apron? Or perhaps a Fairmont Crest spa bathrobe?

Also shockingly missing in action are the Articulettes’ songs. I’d have to imagine that Tamara Tunie (Anita Dupree), Bonita Brisker (Sharon Winger), and Maria Howell (Tracy Tyler) recorded full versions of the Articulettes songs that we’ve heard on the show. So why aren’t they available to stream or download? Because you know what the Internet does not need? Me doing cover versions of the song on TikTok.

WORST STORYLINE POINT: Show Us, Don’t Tell Us

“Show, don’t tell.” It’s an age old philosophy about storytelling. Basically, it means that the viewers should see what happened and not told about something that took place off screen.

Doug McBride’s death was a pivotal moment in story. His death marked the first death of a Beyond the Gates character. It also launched his widow Vanessa fully into Joey Armstrong’s orbit. Why was there no on-screen memorial service? Is it, as I asked about the Bill versus Naomi storyline, that the show didn’t have an appropriate set for the occasion?

Also, no matter how many times they tried to offer an explanation, I do not believe that Doug’s daughter, Deanna, would not want to be in town for his memorial.

Jacob and Naomi’s marriage was on the verge of unravelling because Jacob had a change of heart about wanting to be a dad. The couple eventually agreed to go to see a counsellor. The two talk about their counselling sessions every chance they get. Did we need to see every moment of their meetings with the therapist? No. Did we see even a millisecond of one of those sessions? No. We’ve seen the couple fight, so I think it is only natural that we should have seen some of what got them back on track.

Chelsea’s Thanksgiving with Madison and Madison’s mom, Willow, sounded like quite the awkward holiday meal. Seeing it take place would have given better insight into why Madison and Chelsea were feuding.

WORST TWIST: The Unexpected Repeats

Want to tick off a soap fan? Interrupt their show for a random news report that could have been covered by one of the dozens of news channels that exist. In the “olden days,” if an episode was interrupted, there was no way to see what you’d missed. Thankfully, the streaming era means that these episodes are no longer lost forever.

When Beyond the Gates was picked up, it was given a 200-episode first season. That’s great, right? Well…

The problem was that there were more than 200 weekdays between the show’s premiere date and the end of the calendar year. That meant that the network had to come up with a way to account for that discrepancy. The decision? Air random weeks of repeats to fill the void.

It wasn’t the worst solution, but the show never offered up an official explanation about why and when repeats were being aired. Social media, being social media, concocted a bunch of conspiracy theories about why CBS aired the rebroadcasts. Those “explanations” included claims of racism and theories that the network wanted the show’s ratings to tank so that it could be canceled. Neither was true.

There was some legitimate concern that the repeats could halt the momentum the show was gaining. By year’s end, Beyond the Gates was regularly logging 1.5 million viewers for its CBS broadcast, up more than 300,000 viewers from a year earlier when The Talk was on the air. That total is probably even more impressive, but streaming viewership from Paramount+ has not been made available.

Other Grumbles and Complaints

Criminal!

We need to discuss the fact that for more than ten months, Nicole Dupree has gotten away with murder a moving violation! She clearly blows through the stop sign just outside the country club. Her crime is even immortalized in the show’s opening credits. If any of us did that, they’d take our car and squish it up into one of those metal cubes.

Monster!

Eva has done some pretty terrible things, but nothing is worse than the way she left a half-eaten cupcake on the table at the Uptown. What kind of monster doesn’t eat the whole cupcake? And it was a birthday cupcake. That borders on sociopathic behavior and I will not tolerate it.

Party Pooper!

I suspect it had something to do with the fluidity of when the show would premiere at the time taping started, but I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t have the acknowledgement of any holidays until Halloween. There was no Easter, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Fourth of July summer barbeque, or Labor Day.

Nameless!

I found it really weird that Derek named his chair. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone to name a piece of furniture — other than pieces that are in a museum somewhere. Even weirder? He did not name the moose head. Hell, even I named his moose head. I call him Edgar. In fact, I am considering calling future Worst of the Year columns “The Edgars” or “The Mooseheads.”

Closing The Gates on 2025

That’s it — that’s the last column for two thousand and twenty five. If you missed my Best of Beyond the Gates 2025, you can read it here. As always, please feel free to share your thoughts on the column and share your picks for the Worst of 2025 in the Comments section below this article or on my special media feeds.

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