There will be some fresh faces in Genoa City this fall when the character of Roxanne Barrington returns to town now played by Tetona Jackson, and Fareed Ward takes on the new role of Dr. Andrew Bishop.

The castings are the first revealed from The Young and the Restless’ new co-head writers, Jamey Giddens and Dan O’Connor, whose material begins airing November 11 on the CBS daytime drama series. TV Insider first broke the news.

The timing of a Roxanne return is intriguing since the original portrayer, Tatyana Ali is back in the pop culture zeitgeist currently competing for the Len Goodman Mirror Ball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars.

Photo: JPI

In story, Devon (Bryton James) and Roxanne were on-again off-again for several years from 2007-2013 until the character left town. Tatyana Ali actually picked up three consecutive NAACP Image Awards for her work on Y&R.

While a newcomer to daytime, Jackson has been a series regular on BET’s Boomerang, the CBS comedy series, Poppa’s House and had a recurring role in Freeform’s Good Trouble that also featured former General Hospital star, Bryan Craig (ex-Morgan Corinthos).

As for Fareed Ward, his new character of Dr. Andrew Bishop happens to be a medical colleague of Nate Hastings (Sean Dominic) and Stephanie Simmons (Vivica A. Fox). While Stephanie serves as chief of staff at Genoa City Memorial Hospital, Nate recently returned to medicine after undergoing surgery to repair a debilitating hand injury from an altercation with Devon.

Ward has appeared in several primetime series including: CBS’s CIA, FBI and S.W.A.T, the comedy series Will & Grace and Netflix’s Graveyard. He also had a stint on All My Children as a character named Larry.

Photo: CBS

Expectations are high for the the new co-head writing regime of two-time Daytime Emmy Outstanding Writing Team nominee, Jamey Giddens (for his work on Beyond the Gates and Days of our Lives), and for Dan O’Connor who at one time was the co-head writer of General Hospital and also known for his lengthy tenure at One Life to Live and more recently as part of the writing team at Days of our Lives.

It was back on July 29 that CBS and Y&R announced their replacements for the head writing gig after Josh Griffith decided to step down from the position he held since 2019.

So, what do you think about Y&R bringing back Roxanne and introducing us to a new doctor? Excited to see how they fold into Jamey and Dan’s stories? Weigh-in via the comment section below.

On Friday, October 30, Genie Francis will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during the 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards ceremonies. Ahead of her honor, Genie sat down with Extra host and Dancing with the Stars judge, Derek Hough to discuss her legendary soap career and enduring on-screen partnership with the late Anthony Geary (ex-Luke Spencer).

Speaking of joining GH as a young Laura Vining when she was just 14, Francis admitted,  “It was so scary, I mean you don’t know what you don’t know. If I really knew what I was in for I would have been terrified.”

Genie will be presented with her Lifetime Achievement Award by her husband of 40 years, actor and director, Jonathan Frakes.

Courtesy/CBS

Commenting on being the recipient of the Daytime Emmys highest recognition, Francis expressed, it’s “a wonderful feeling of accomplishment,'” and on receiving the award from her husband, “It feels incredibly safe and takes a lot of my nerves out of it because I know he’s another one who’s just not going to let me screw up, right?”

THE LEADING MEN THROUGHOUT HER LIFE: JONATHAN FRAKES AND TONY GEARY

Speaking of feeling safe, Francis echoed that sentiment when getting teary-eyed over reflecting on her time as the all-time soap opera super couple, Luke and Laura with Tony Geary. Genie reflected, “I’m going to cry. He (Tony) made me who I am today. I learned so much from this man. He was so loving and so kind. She added about the famous dance at Wyndham’s department store between Luke and Laura, “If I was in his arms I could do it.”

That sentiment carried on for decades with Geary. Francis even admitted to Derek Hough, a secret, “I wear Tony Geary’s cologne. I just remember hugging him and smelling him and I said, ‘Oh, it smells so good.’ And he told me what it was and he said, ‘It’s unisex. You can wear it.’”

Courtesy/Extra

Up until now, its hard to believe that Genie has only won once at the Daytime Emmys. It was back in 2007 in the Outstanding Supporting Actress category, where once on-stage to accept the gold statuette, she acknowledged Geary.

Genie continues to be humble regarding the impact and lasting impression she’s made on the soap genre saying to Hough, “I’ve never gotten my impact. I just don’t get it.”You can check out Extra’s segment with Genie Francis below.

Now weigh-in; are you happy and excited to see Genie being honored for her decades of work in the soaps? What has been your favorite storyline of Laura, or Luke and Laura through the years? Let us know via the comment section below.

Things continue to look up, up, up for CBS daytime’s Beyond the Gates. Now, in the latest Nielsen ratings picture, that 15-time Daytime Emmy nominated drama has moved into the #3 spot over legendary soap opera, General Hospital in the key women’s demos, 18-49 and 25-54.

In addition, according to data from Soap Opera Network, Beyond the Gates is closing the gap on General Hospital, even among total viewers. Let’s take a look at the week in question which are reflected in the latest ratings report.

For the week of October 5-9, 2026, Beyond the Gates is inching closer to an average of 1.8 million viewers tuning-in with the ratings week at 1,756,000. While down slightly from the previous week by -9,000, the series taped in Atlanta, is still up year-over-year +161,000.

Photo: CBS

BEYOND THE GATES

As for the all-important demos, Beyond the Gates delivered a 0.22 ratings share in women 18-49, which is up +0.02 week-over-week, while General Hospital fell to fourth place in ratings share for the demo with 0.21, which was on par from the previous week. Then, in women 25-54, Beyond the Gates scored a 0.32 ratings share; that’s 0.05 points more than GH who came in with 0.27 of the ratings share and up + 0.02 week-over-week.

So, what had viewers tuning-in to Beyond the Gates the week of October 5-9 2026? For starters: Hayley Lawson Hamilton’s (Marquita Goings) blackmail plot falls apart as Vernon Dupree (Clifton Davis) and Joey Armstrong (Jon Lindstrom) intervene to stop her in her tracks. Meanwhile, Ted Richardson (Keith D. Robinson) proposed to Shanice (Ernestine Johnson) in the Big Apple.

In addition, Smitty (Mike Manning) refused to participate in Martin’s (Brandon Claybon) upcoming political press conference due to liability concerns, and Andre (Sean Freeman) confronted Dani (Karla Mosley) about her near-death experience the night of the tornado and what it has to do with her ex-husband, Bill (Timon Kyle Durrett)!

Courtesy/ABC

GENERAL HOSPITAL

Over in Port Charles and General Hospital, the ratings week saw a slight uptick in total viewers of +6,000 with a total viewer average at 1,898,000, and up overall +20,o0o year-over-year.

In story, GH brought viewers, ADA Justine Turner (Nazneen Contractor) breaking off her secret romance with Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) as she seemingly struggles to believe his professed innocence in the prison beatdown of Jenz Sidwell (Carlo Rota). Then as Sonny cannot get a single person to believe that he is telling the truth, his ex-wife, Carly (Laura Wright) shows up and stands by his side.

Elsewhere, Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton) and Chase’s (Brook Lynn) marriage continued to crumble, as Lulu (Alexa Havins) published explosive allegations that Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) drugged Drew (Cameron Mathison), after recording Sidwell in his hospital room, who later denies he said anything about Willow and Drew to Lulu.

As per usual, the number #1 and number #2 soaps of the week were The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. The sister soaps also saw the gap close between the two for the top spots with Y&R adding the most viewers for the week with both soaps losing the most viewers for the ratings period.

In total viewers, Y&R came in with 3,015,000 while B&B 2,628,000, which means there is less than 400,000 viewers separating the two.

So, what do you think of how Beyond the Gates outperformed General Hospital in the key demos for the week of October 5-9, 2026? Do you think its just a matter of time before Beyond the Gates overtakes General Hospital in total viewers for the #3 spot, or do you think the iconic daytime drama series can stave them off and maintain its hold on #3 in the viewership? Weigh-in via the comment section.