What’s most exciting about “Abbott Elementary,” a mockumentary sitcom about the staff of an underfunded public school in Philadelphia, is its evident long game, dstfelix writes.
A Black television show cannot spring from a blank slate. It is always a referendum on the history of the medium, the history of race and representation. Two new shows, “Bel-Air” and “Abbott Elementary,” offer a window into the fascinating pressures, exerted by the audience and by the creators themselves, on Black television débuts of late. With “Bel-Air,” which is currently airing on Peacock, the qualifier “new” comes with an asterisk. The show is one of those reimaginations—a.k.a.
Smith is an executive producer of “Bel-Air.” Smith’s participation can explain the myopia of the new series. “Bel-Air” is absurdly reverential toward its source text. The choice to make each episode an hour long—twice the length of the ones in the original series—feels like a kind of genuflection. The pilot opens with a corny fever-dream riff on Smith’s legendary theme song. Our new Will is sitting atop a throne, underwater, a crown gracing his head.
A recent episode hints at Carlton’s future conversion to righteous race awareness, a plot point that the writers should have resisted. “Bel-Air” is correctly circling around the ugliness in Black politics, but it’s too fearful of being misunderstood, or misrepresented, by its viewers. There is also—with story lines involving Will’s home-town adversary and Phil’s political enemies, which are resolved too quickly—a flashy crime drama just begging to surface.
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