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Blackish [ABC] **SPOILERS**

  • 26-09-2014 8:22am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 8,359 ✭✭✭squonk


    Decided to check this out before I headed out last night. Not sure what I expected really but I'm left feeling slightly puzzled.

    This appears to be yet another show that's based on a flimsy enough premise. An African American father, living in Hollywood, looks at his family one day and starts to freak out because he reckons they're more white than Black and losing a connection to their Black roots. He decides to start doing something about that. Hilarity ensues.... in theory.

    The show looks like a weird rehash of The Cosby Show with some of The Crazy Ones blended in for good measure, along with a nod to movies like Barbershop.

    Larry Fishburne stands out as the guy's father. He's largely there to be the stereotypical wise-cracking old black guy (that's where the Barbershop reference comes from. He reminded me of the old guys who hung out there). His wife is the voice of reason and I felt the actress playing her did a sterling job. She certainly shone in this pilot. The rest of the family are a bit meh. I wasn't very interested and the father comes across as a complete dick so that's a minus point right there.

    The reason he's a dick is because he overreacts to everything. His son decides he wants a Barmitzva so roots conscious dad decides he's having an African ceremony instead. He's a newly promoted VP of 'Black stuff' at his ad agency and when they ask for a tourist commercial for LA full of gang warfare, old school gangsta rap and riots. All because he's been banging onto the family about 'keeping it real'. It's one of the shortcomings of the show really that they're shoveling this unbelievable crap at people and expecting them to find it funny. Tosspot then has to admit to his wife that they're thinking of firing him. |Luckily he keeps his job after coming up with an alternative campaign that's a bit of an Apple-esque rip off.

    After all that I was left wondering who this show is aimed at. It makes fun of Black stereotypes so it might probably appeal to Black people and there might be enough there for other races to laugh at themselves. I kind of dislike comedies based around something like race. The Cleveland Show wasn't very dissimilar from this and we all know what happened that. The premise strikes me as something that could have been better handled as a mid-season arc in a more broadly setup comedy. Right now it's like they're flogging the one joke and it mightn't be long before we all get tired of it. Really, they could have done something clever here but completely decided not to. I think renaming the show Crapish would pretty much sum it up perfectly.


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