Beyond the Horizon Wiki

Beyond the Horizon (Original Soap Opera Fiction)
Against the backdrop of the diverse cultural and sexual melting pot that is New York City, everything is possible and nothing is taboo when it's Beyond the Horizon. Delve into this elaborate fictional soap opera world, where Aviva Reynoso is suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and is pregnant. Aviva isn't aware of the pregnancy, but alter Ava wants to terminate. What caused Aviva's mental illness in the first place and what will come of her pregnancy? Rod Applewhite's girlfriend Crystal Halperin learned she was expecting, just as Rod accepted he had feelings for his late father's much younger male lover, Christian Avery Field. Betrayed, will Crystal ever let Rod be a father to their baby? Can Christian move past his guilt and fear that loving Rod is a betrayal of loving Rod's father Terrence? Ambitious self-centered Jenna Baldwin has stepped on family and made no friends in her journey to the top of the business world, but her newfound daughter Dana has it out for her, and Jenna's lover, corporate dynamo Shawn Marks, is carrying on a secret down-low affair with Jenna's half-brother Eddie Dawson, a.k.a. drag performer Aurora Borealis. Will karma cut Jenna back down to size? Wife and mother Eleanor Halperin felt like she lost everything when her husband died mysteriously, but found hope and new love with his former boss, Henry Von Stadt. What will happen when she learns Henry had a part in her husband's death and that he's trying to cover up that his international conglomerate is heavily involved in the illegal drug trade?

Creation and Development
Beyond the Horizon is an original soap opera written exclusively for the internet by David Evan Smith, a lifetime fan of daytime serials, particularly such long-running soap operas like General Hospital, One Life to Live, All My Children, Port Charles, and The City. At various points in time, Smith had written "fan fiction" versions of each of the soap operas he grew up watching, but in January 2007, Smith decided to take on the task of creating his own fictional serial, completely from scratch.

One ongoing frustration Smith had with daytime serials was a lack of commitment to gay characters and their storylines, which was the inciting reason for deciding to launch his own series. Conversely, Smith enjoyed series that chronicled the experiences of the gay community (i.e. Queer as Folk), but criticized its inability or unwillingness to document the interaction between the gay and straight communities in a consistent and realistic light. The interaction between the LGBTQ community and the heterosexual community would become the basis for Beyond the Horizon.

Title
The title of the series originated from a previous attempt at an original series, a collaboration between Smith and friend Lee Meyer, but the project never quite got off the ground. Years later, Smith felt that the title (and the series logo he created) could be salvaged from the defunct project and work well for his new idea. Smith felt the title embodied the mystery of the unknown and was very intimidating, alluring, and hopeful, all at the same time. Smith has stated that "a phrase like 'Beyond the Horizon' inspires the idea about exploring uncharted territories, both within and without. Life is about self-discovery, and the title really calls that to mind."

Casting
After coming up with solid ideas for the original characters and initial storylines, assigning careers to the characters, grouping them into families, and deciding on the cast, Smith launched the series with a debut date of November 5th, 2007. Being that the series is a fiction written for the internet, there are no actual actors, but Smith has chosen real notable soap opera actors (mostly from established ABC daytime soaps) to "represent" the characters, a typical method for fictional online series, in order for the reader to envision a face when reading a name, and identify a particular actor's abilities and persona while reading their dialogue.

Character Name & Location Significance
Many of the names and locations used in Beyond the Horizon hold personal significance to creator David Evan Smith.

Guerrilla Marketing
During the 2007 launch of Beyond the Horizon, creator Smith employed "guerrilla" marketing tactics, having printed business cards and stickers featuring the BTH logo and the original website URL where the series could be found. Smith would leave the cards and/or stickers in various parts of New York City (where the series is also set), such as on Subway trains and in gay bars, affixing the stickers on mirrors in the bathrooms of gay bars or on lampposts in the gay-friendly Chelsea area of lower Manhattan.

Ad Campaigns & Slogans
As one would expect from a new soap opera seeking to build an audience, Smith focused on an initial ad campaign online featuring ads that were character-specific, offering the character's photo, a clever blurb capturing the essence of the character, and the series logo. Ads were constructed for every character on the series.

Storyline ads were created as well, in JPG (still) and GIF (motion graphic) formats, offering multiple lines of text describing the ultimate obstacle in the storyline of the characters featured. The series logo was again featured, with a tagline reading "The Most Colorful Gray Area in Daytime." This slogan has been connected to Beyond the Horizon through the present day.

Social Networking
As Beyond the Horizon gained an audience, Smith expanded his advertising scope to social networking website Facebook, establishing a Facebook page where fans of BTH could "like" the series and follow updates via Facebook. As of September 2012, the BTH Facebook page has 41 likes, considerable for an online series that is purely written and doesn't feature live scenes.

ONtv Network
Smith began posting Beyond the Horizon on DRtv, an online fiction community that featured multiple fan fictions from various writers and numerous original series as well. BTH saw great support from an audience of its peers and won several awards from DRtv's DRammy and Elite Awards. Smith was recruited into the management of DRtv and was involved with the rebranding of the site to ONtv, an effort to both streamline and expand the site, making it more interactive along with fellow Admins Scott Williams, Steve Ungrey and Erik Bard.

Erik Bard is spearheading his own rebranding of the previous DRtv Elite Awards into the new ONtv Elite Awards for 2012, of which many categories have received submissions from Beyond the Horizon.

Format
A pilot episode was written, and from then on was posted in monthly installments, in recap format, explaining the goings-on to the reader. In the May 2008 installment, the format was altered to weekly installments, which were posted for May and June, but the monthly format was resumed from July 2008 through September 2008. October 2008 marked a return to weekly installments, which have continued to the present day. Smith has stated that he intends to return to monthly formats, in order to be able to post more frequently, but is concerned with how much nuance, detail, and character development would be sacrificed in more generalized overviews of a monthly format. It remains to be seen how the series will continue posting installments. Presently, individual stand-alone episodes have only been written for the pilot (November 5, 2007) and the first anniversary (November 5, 2008).

Title Sequence
Beyond the Horizon's original opening title sequence was created in a format similar to other soap operas from the time, in order to seamlessly blend with the style of those soap opera opening sequences. Against a black screen, the title of the series fades in amongst rotating spheres, symbolic of revolving planets, possibly representing the two "worlds" of the gay and straight communities. The two worlds pop into place of the two "o" letters in the word "Horizon", and the black and white title suddenly fills in with the spectrum of rainbow color. The title dissolves to black and begins with shots of the actors cast in the series, beginning with leading lady Catherine Hickland (Eleanor Halperin), and ending with Baldwin family patriarch, and the series' eldest cast member, John Ingle (Theodore Baldwin). Panels of color (each color of the rainbow) flip around repeating faces of higher-profile cast members, and then the rainbow title shot repeats at the end of the sequence.

The first original cast member to be removed from the sequence was Walt Willey (Terrence Applewhite), after his character died from complications due to AIDS. Terrence was removed from the sequence in an update that debuted for the one-year anniversary of the series, on November 5, 2008. Aside from Willey's removal, every update has added cast members to the sequence, particularly Ian Buchanan (Evan Royale), Ilene Kristen (Edina Dawson), Lynn Herring (Lauren Sapphyre), Kelli Giddish (Didi Dawson), Tuc Watkins (Trevor Allen), Brittany Underwood (Dana Worthy), and William Shew (Dominic Soletti).

The series theme song is an edit of "Desperate Guys" by The Faint.

The sequence won a DRtv Drammy award for Outstanding Video Opening in 2009.

Production Halt
Due to problems with the website that hosted Beyond the Horizon, and a lot of personal changes in creator David Evan Smith's life, new installments of Beyond The Horizon ceased production. Smith had outlines for future storylines planned well into the future, and still maintained a passion for the characters and the world he created in Beyond The Horizon. But would there be time to resurrect the series that was so close to his heart?

Potential Spin-off Series and Retroactive Continuity
Another soap opera project of Smith's, titled Brownstone, followed a different, smaller set of characters who all had apartments within an old New York City brownstone building. While all characters conceived of for the series were entirely unconnected to Beyond the Horizon, and originated before concept work for Beyond The Horizon began, Smith devised a backstory that connected the Brownstone matriarch Eliza Hansen (Kim Zimmer) to Beyond The Horizon matriarch Eleanor Halperin (Catherine Hickland) by marriage. Eleanor's deceased husband Charles would have been explained as Eliza's deceased brother, making the women in-laws and their respective children related to each other as cousins. Beyond the Horizon advanced well beyond the planning and execution of Brownstone, so the Brownstone series was reserved as a potential spin-off concept for Beyond the Horizon, but when production halted on new installments of Horizon, plans for Brownstone were shelved indefinitely.

Possible BTH Reboot
With many strong ideas about future storyline and new characters, Smith is currently considering a reboot for Beyond The Horizon, which would afford him the opportunity to fine-tune and streamline storylines and reconsider some previous casting choices. If Smith chooses to proceed with the reboot, he is considering a relaunch date of November 2, 2015, the Monday of the week that BTH debuted eight years prior.