In February, the first new soap opera on broadcast TV in a quarter-century (and the first Black soap opera in 35 years) will launch on CBS. Set in a gated community in a Maryland suburb, “Beyond the Gates” follows the life of the powerful Dupree family, and news about it gave me hope that daytime dramas would survive and welcome a new generation of fans. Despite the genre’s demise over the years, soaps still hold a unique place in TV’s landscape and create a community for the people who watch them.

I was first introduced to soaps unintentionally as a kid in the 1980s because my babysitter used to have them on during the day. In this era, they dominated the TV airwaves for most of the afternoon. While I was too young to understand the storylines, I was old enough to understand the important place they had in people’s lives.

I got into watching a soap opera on my own as a teenager because “The Young and the Restless” came on at 4:30 p.m., which is when I got home from high school. With only one television on the main floor, other family members soon joined in to watch the show after they got home from school or work as well.

When I got to university in the 1990s, soaps were always on in the school pubs and common areas during the day, so we would gather there between classes to watch them and discuss the latest far-fetched storyline. We saw everything from people coming back from the dead, evil twins, switched babies, illegitimate children and even characters undergoing plastic surgery to look like somebody else. It was a nice escape from whatever we were studying in our classes.

After graduating from university and starting a day job, I would only be able to watch my favorite soap when I was off for holidays or home sick. But years later when I got channels from the West Coast on TV, I was able to occasionally catch my show in the evenings.

Today, when people discover that I still watch a soap opera, it is often met with surprise. Not an usual reaction, since the long-running daytime dramas “All My Children,” “Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns” have gone off-air in the past decade, and “Days of our Lives” recently moved to streaming. That leaves just three soaps on broadcast TV today, down from a high of 19 in 1969-70. For me, this show I got introduced to all those years ago unexpectedly created a lasting community.

In a TV landscape awash with reality TV shows that run in a three-month cycle, and sitcoms and dramas that have 13- or 22-episode seasons, soap operas are unique because they turn out five shows a week and continue for decades. In the book “TV: The Most Popular Art,” author Horace Newcomb points out that because of the serial nature of soaps, they can offer depictions of people in situations that grow and change over time, allowing for greater audience involvement.

At a time when we’re used to binging TV shows on a streaming service over the course of a few days, a week or a month, it’s comforting to have a genre that continues uninterrupted for over 50 years (no need to hope for a reboot decades later like with “Frasier,” “Sex and the City” and “Jersey Shore”). As a viewer, you grow older with the characters and are able to see multiple generations of the same families over time, and the triumphs and turmoil that unfold within them. You are also able to create an enduring bond with family and friends who have watched the same soap for as long as you have. While we may not be able to physically gather around a TV like we once did, no matter how much time has passed, we are still able to connect over the latest love triangle on our shared daytime drama.

My hope is that “Beyond the Gates” will introduce a new cohort of fans who grew up on reality TV and YouTube videos to this genre, so they, too, can get hooked on the juicy storylines of the Dupree family in Maryland and create a community in this fragmented TV landscape that lasts long beyond a sitcom, medical drama or “Real Housewives” series does.

Debra Rughoo is a freelance writer.