The 2003 TV season: new shows, new faces, new attitudes!

Ebony, Oct, 2003 by Zondra Hughes

HERE we go again. Four years after the television diversity debate went public, little or no progress has been made, and some commentators are saying that the big four networks--ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox--are back to their old tricks, whitewashing the prime-time lineup.

The numbers are telling:

Last year, the big four only offered one new Black-oriented show, Cedric The Entertainer Presents (on Fox), which was quietly cancelled in June. This year the big four networks are offering only two Black-oriented shows.

Last year, the networks offered 16 new shows featuring Black actors in leading or recurring roles; this year, there are only 6, and 16 of last year's shows with Blacks in leading or recurring shows have bitten the dust.

To make matters worse, there's an increasing tendency to segregate Blacks in shows where Black characters only interact with other Blacks, or to pigeonhole "Black" shows, no matter the genre, and to air them back-to-back on so-called "Black nights."

New Shows, New Faces, New Attitudes!

Actress Holly Robinson Peete, co-star of the WB's new multiracial sitcom Like Family, says that the networks should take a cue from the genius of the Cosby Show, where the Black family was the focus of the show, but other nationalities were regularly included in the Black family's lives.

"For Your Love was a really great show because we had a multicultural thing going on," she says, "but the network put it on during a night with the Wayans Brothers, Steve Harvey, and The Jamie Foxx Show, and we really didn't fit in that night. We never got the audience that we wanted because we were skewed to a certain type of viewer. Thankfully, this is not the case with Like Family."

Despite continuing problems, there is some progress to report. For starters, Black women are making strides in front of and behind the camera. Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith are producers of one of the most anticipated Black-oriented sitcoms, All of Us (on UPN). The new series is based loosely on the Smiths' lives. All of Us stars Duane Martin, LisaRaye, Elise Neal, Khamani Griffin and Tony Rock.

Rap superstar Eve stars in the new UPN sitcom Eve, as a beautiful and intelligent woman trying to balance her career and her love life. Other cast members include Jason George, Natalie Desselle and Brian Hooks. Comedienne Whoopi Goldberg stars in Whoopi (on NBC) as the feisty Mavis Rae, a one-hit-wonder singer who operates a small hotel in New York, where she also sings at the hotel bar.

Brothers are making some progress as well, as evidenced by The Tracy Morgan Show, a new sitcom that is loosely based on comedian Tracy Morgan's life. In the NBC sitcom, Morgan is a hardworking, streetwise Brooklyn mechanic and family man in the pursuit of happiness. Tamala Jones portrays his beautiful better half, and Mare John Jeffries, and Bobbe J. Thompson portray his children. A much slimmer Heavy D. and John Witherspoon round out the cast.

These new additions will join the other three returning Black-oriented shows on the big four--The Bernie Mac Slow, Wanda At Large (a mid-season show that premiered last year) both on Fox, and My Wife and Kids on ABC.

NEW SHOWS

The six new shows featuring Blacks in leading or recurring roles are all dramas.

ABC introduces 10-8, a one-hour police drama co-starring Ernie Hudson. Hudson portrays training officer John Henry Barnes, the meanest, toughest veteran on the force. In Karen Sisco, Bill Duke and others pursue dangerous fugitives on Miami's Gold Coast; and the homeland security agency is the focus in Threat Matrix, where Mahershalalhashbaz Ali joins the search to seek and destroy a network of terrorists.

On CBS, Hill Harper is part of a team of secret agents who go deep undercover to crack prostitution rings, drug trafficking and white-collar crimes on The Handler.

On NBC, James Lesure and Marsha Thomason join the cast of Las Vegas, a drama about an elite surveillance team charged with securing one of Las Vegas' largest casinos. In The Lyon's Den, James Pickens Jr. is a member of a 150-year-old D.C.-based law firm that could be harboring a few seedy secrets.

RETURNING SHOWS

The big four networks' 2003 prime-time lineup also includes several returning shows with Blacks in prominent or recurring roles.

Returning shows on ABC include Less Than Perfect with Sherri Shepherd; Life with Bonnie, with David Alan Grier, Alias with Carl Lumbly and Merrin Dungey; The Practice co-starring Steve Harris; and NYPD Blue with Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon and Henry Simmons.

On CBS, Andre Braugher returns to the detective drama Hack; Hattie Winston and Alex Desert are once again serving up laughs on the sitcom Becker Marianne Jean-Baptiste is back in the suspenseful drama Without a Trace; Gary Dourdan returns to the hit crime-solving drama series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, while Khandi Alexander returns to CSI: Miami; Sean Patrick Thomas, John Amos and Roger Aaron Brown are back on The District (sadly, actress Lynn Thigpen died in March); and Richard T. Jones is back on Judging Amy.