black-ish: Season 1 (2014)
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Critics Consensus: Although it seems uncertain of its target audience, black-ish ingratiates with a diverse cast and engaging cultural issues.
Critics Consensus: Although it seems uncertain of its target audience, black-ish ingratiates with a diverse cast and engaging cultural issues.
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Season Info
A successful family man worries that his four children are losing touch with black culture because they are growing up in an affluent, mostly white neighborhood.- Genre:
- Comedy
- Network:
- ABC
- Premiere Date:
- Sep 24, 2014
Cast
Anthony Anderson
as Andre "Dre" Johnson,... |
Laurence Fishburne
as Pops |
Tracee Ellis Ross
as Rainbow Johnson |
Yara Shahidi
as Zoey Johnson |
Caila Martin
as Diane Johnson |
Marcus Scribner
as Andre Johnson Jr. |
Miles Brown
as Jack Johnson |
Jenifer Lewis
as Ruby |
Deon Cole
as Charlie Telphy |
Jeff Meacham
as Josh |
Peter Mackenzie
as Mr. Stevens |
|
Jennie Pierson
as Ms. Davis |
Ana Ortiz
as Angelica |
David L. King
as Mr. Boyer |
Mandy Levin
as Sydney Martin |
Jacob Kemp
as Kris Levine |
Forte Rodriguez
as Security Guard |
Kimberley Crossm...
as Tawny |
Quinn Friedman
as Kevin |
Nicole Sullivan
as Janine |
|
David Goldman
as Bruce |
Andria Kozica
as Tracy |
Martin Garcia
as Museum Honcho |
|
Sharon Muthu
as Charani |
Grace Rowe
as Tanya |
Lesley Tsina
as Stacy |
Chris Carroll
as Butler/Winston |
Ursula Burton
as Candace |
|
Ken Jenkins
as Announcer/Bernie |
|
David Fickas
as Glen |
Brandon Gibson
as Adam |
Elizabeth June
as Harriet Tubman |
Michael Nanfria
as Kevin |
Related News & Features
-
Behind the Scenes with black-ish Twins Jack and Diane
– Rotten Tomatoes
-
20 TV Parents and Kids With Laughable Real-Life Age Differences
– Rotten Tomatoes
Episodes
Advertising exec Dre looks forward to a promotion that would make him the first African American senior vice president at his firm in the premiere of this family sitcom, but he worries that there is a price to pay for his success when his son Andre Jr. announces that for his 13th birthday he's converting to Judaism in order to have a Bar Mitzvah like all his friends.
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LoginCritic Reviews for black-ish: Season 1
All Critics (56) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (8)
There's tons of talent here, both on and behind the camera, so I'll stick around to see it stretch and grow into whatever it might become.
Probably the best lead-out of Modern Family we've seen in years.
For the first time in a long, long time there's a sitcom that appeals to both black and white audiences. It's almost a public service to bring people of different demographic segments to the same show.
It's cool to see Fishburne reclaim the comic power he had on Pee-wee's Playhouse.
At the end of the day, black-ish is the wrong mix of a lot differing ideas.
Black-ish seems to have bit off more than it can chew. Still, it has enough good in it to suggest it may find its own niche. A brave, new world needs a brave, new sitcom.
In the capable hands of executive producers Larry Wilmore and Kenya Barris, Black-ish presents the topic as more of an open conversation that's welcoming to all.
It's always hard to judge a show based on the pilot, but Black-ish is an all around funny and enjoyable show that doesn't try too hard to get laughs.
At first glance, once could easily call this an updated version of The Cosby Show, but to do so would be doing a disservice to this uniquely ambitious undertaking.
Black-ish is a true bright spot in a bleak fall TV landscape.
It's a good premise for a sitcom. Anderson is joined by Tracee Ellis Ross as his bi-racial doctor wife, Rainbow, and Laurence Fishburne as his ever-disapproving father; and the kids are better than a lot of sitcom kids.
Black-ish stands out in its commitment to explore serious cultural issues with a humorous slant. It stands out among the three family sitcoms that precede it on ABC's comedy night and even stands out among the broadcast television slate as a whole.
Anderson's family sitcom about cultural identity in the '10s is often insightful and surprisingly funny given the potential pitfalls of its premise.
The smartest new network comedy is the one that questions expectations in a sitcom that follows an African-American family - just about the only one now on broadcast TV.
Once you get past its pejorative and provocative title, ABC's new family comedy Black-ish is extremely intelligent and funny.
Anderson and Ross are an appealing onscreen couple whose relationship feels quite genuine.
The show is refreshingly frank when it comes to the daily ramifications of modern racial politics.
If Black-ish is the hit it deserves to be, it would also be an important achievement for network TV in general, which is embracing diversity in very positive ways this season (with Latino families the focus of the upcoming Jane the Virgin and Cristela).
The African American experience is not one of easy assimilation into mainstream culture. What makes black-ish potentially great is Barris' recognition of that.
It certainly has a lot of potential. For now, let's call it "great- ish."
It can't just be funny, it has to be astute and adept as well. The good news is that so far, it navigates that challenging territory with intelligence, wit and subversive purpose.
Black-ish also gives the impression that it could do better. The writers are going to have to start by trying to keep it real-ish.
[It] works on several levels -- multigenerational sitcom, workplace comedy, cultural and class satire. Will it have Cosby Show crossover appeal? That's one of those questions we shouldn't have to ask in post-racial America, but it tackles it with finesse.
In its own sweet way, this is a landmark show.
Black-ish is about the upper-middle-class black experience, but it refuses to oversimplify the place that oversimplifications have in our hearts.
It's scattered, and in the first episode it doesn't push envelopes or test edges.
Unfortunately, the Black-ish pilot comes across as a Hollywood tour of black American identity tropes.
What is revolutionary about Black-ish is that it talks about race, jokes about race and isn't squeamish about the results.
ABC's timely comedy black-ish tackles the question every minority faces as an affluent suburbanite worries his kids, well, are just too color-blind.
Its broadness isn't dumbed-down so much as it is welcoming, inviting its potential audience to sit down to a nice home-cooked meal before hitting them with some humorously phrased but still uncomfortable truths.
The pilot episode may be a discussion of ethnic identity, but for all the seriousness of that topic, it's a very funny discussion.
[It] is only sporadically funny, and while there's ample potential in the concept, even with diminished expectations for the post-"Modern Family" timeslot, it would behoove the series to get a bit better, fast-ish.
The episode... visits in rapid succession - always comically - a formidable range of issues Andre encounters as a result of this duality.
Without offering any simple answers, the show amusingly questions racial issues and assumptions that other shows ignore. What helps the show carry them is the good humor Anderson adds to his bluster and the chemistry he shares with Ross.
It's both fairly daring and also endearing, sharply written but with an overdose of narrative exposition. The kids and adults are all well-cast and there's no laugh track to gum anything up.
Black-ish's nuance is promising-it's aware that there's not just one way to be black-and the sheer level of execution suggests it has staying power.
There are other shows this fall that made me laugh louder and more often (even if not always at moments designed for laughter), but Black-ish arrives as a comedy that knows what it's about, and how it wants to be about it in a very smart way.
Race is tackled gently in fresh family-friendly sitcom.
The show has a point of view, and the cast is strong.
Black-ish, is fun, cool, and hip. It just so happens to also have a lot going on upstairs.
Yes, black-ish can be fiercely funny, sharply observed, and unfailingly good-humored about the racial divide. But just beyond that glossy surface is a serious and even compelling undercurrent.
Is only funny-ish. Was expecting more from the pilot given the cast and the producer.
At a time when so much talk about race is so serious, it's a pleasure to see a show which has a good time poking fun at everyone's misconceptions and hangups.
The pilot is a little light at bringing the funny, but the concept has promise - and Laurence Fishburne.
Depending on how far it's willing to press and poke at the issues it raises, Black-ish displays a welcoming sense of humor that might be illuminating in the present context.
It shouldn't feel so novel for a comedy to feature a black family who talk about being black in ways that are honest and interesting, but it does.
It is charming, it is amusing. But it just doesn't make you laugh enough, and that is the root of all comedy. To be honest, I was disappointed and expected more but I see its potential and am willing to give it another look.
It's more engaged with meaningful issues than the other 'modern' sitcom that airs right before it.
At a time when networks have been rightly excoriated for their lack of diversity both on-air and behind the scenes, the show appears like a glimmering beacon of hope and change.
It's uncertain who Black-ish envisions as its target audience: Some viewers might be put off by Andre's sense of victimization while others might tune in and be disappointed that Andre is the latest in a long line of Dumb Daddy buffoons.
ABC finally found a funny show to follow Modern Family that's about another modern family. And no, it doesn't hurt that it's a family of color, addressing issues of assimilation with humor.
The material is being put over beautifully by the winning cast.
There's no 'ish' about it. This ambitious series, slotted right after Modern Family, looks at issues that speak to everyone in this diverse country. How do we deal with our differences and how do we balance individuality and cultural identity?
black-ish is good-ish.
Penned by Kenya Barris, black-ish holds the promise of being the best Modern Family companion show that ABC in recent years actually thought to schedule in that time slot.
It's a lot of Deep Thoughts packed into a fluffy sitcom, but black-ish seems up to the challenge.
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