Introducing The Racialicious TV Roundup

April 17th, 2012 by Guest Contributor

Being Human (U.K.): This past weekend many American fans caught up with their English counterparts and said goodbye to the last member of the show’s original trio. In keeping with the sweeping expansion and redefinition showrunner Toby Whithouse engineered this year, Annie (Lenora Crichlow) finally made her way through her Door into the afterlife, after saving the world–by killing her adopted daughter Eve and preventing the vampire apocalypse we first encountered in the season premiere. (In fairness to Annie, an alternate-future version of Eve told her to do just that, giving her–and us viewers–quite possibly the nerviest hand-wave of the past few years.)

Though it’s tough to figure out how much of Annie’s arc was set in stone before co-stars Aidan Turner, Sinead Keenan, and Russell Tovey left the series (can you imagine an American show replacing 75 percent of the core cast going into its biggest season?) Annie’s decision fulfilled the vampire Wyndham’s prediction in Season 3: that she would be more powerful than she ever imagined. Of course, the show’s constant shuffling of guest players throughout the season telegraphed Annie’s exit as soon as a new ghost, Alex, stuck around. Nontheless, Annie didn’t just go out with a bang–she dropped an F-bomb to go along with the other explosions, making her sendoff worth checking out.

The most discouraging thing about Crichlow’s departure is, the series will now continue with an all-white set of protagonists: Kate Bracken as the ghostly Alex, along with Michael Socha as werewolf Tom and Damien Molony as Hal the vampire (who, thank goodness, managed to be more than Not-Mitchell). Here’s to hoping Whithouse doesn’t neglect characters of color in the midst of resetting the BH‘verse next year. - AG

Courtesy Racebending.com

The Legend of Korra: For those of us who still get genuinely excited about cartoons (you’re in good company), the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered on Nickelodeon this weekend! Korra not only focuses on almost exclusively non-white protagonists but centers around a lead female hero. Premiering while kids are still high on The Hunger Games can only work in its favor–and hey, Korra looks way more like book Katniss than Jennifer Lawrence! For a full recap of the first two episodes check out Lori Sammy and Marissa Lee’s annotated viewing over at Racebending. - KJ

Saturday Night Live: And finally, I’d like to give a quick shout out to Jay Pharoah for, to my complete surprise, appearing in more sketches in one night than it sometimes feels like he’s in in the span of a few months. After taking a moment to google furiously and make sure that Keenan Thompson was still alive and well, I sat back and enjoyed Pharoah’s much-deserved moment in the spotlight. His Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Kanye West impressions (all featured in separate sketches this week) are spot-on, and while the final sketch of the night featured SNL’s usual inappropriate/unfunny humor, Pharoah’s standout ‘Principal Frye’ reminded me, in the best ways, of both Eddie Murphy and Kel Mitchell (of All That fame–I’m young, all right?). The cast also took on the Trayvon Martin story (Pharoah appears in this sketch as Kanye West) and proved that they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, Pharoah was excellent. On the other hand, despite Zimmerman’s arrest this week, is it too soon to be making sketch-comedy jokes? - KJ

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Posted in casting, celebrities, diversity, race & representations, tv | 6 comments

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  • Anonymous

    RE: Mad Men – The show has been done from the angle of how a white run ad firm saw the times, and where their focus was. POC didn’t intrude much into their world other than as subordinates or an ephemeral “other”.

  • nivcharayahel

    On Glee  – A post at http://deconstructingglee.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/important-intel-re-baby-blaine/ indicates that the child actor cast to play young Blaine in the episode is POC also, which indicates to me that the writers are at least paying some attention to this. With the age difference between Cooper and Blaine, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re half-brothers, though of course the show doesn’t say anything about that possibility.

  • Anonymous

    The head of advertising and promotions at CBS from 1951 to 1960 was a black man named Georg Olden.  I stopped watching Mad Men because I see setting shows in this time period as an excuse for not to casting  POC.   Excluding us from these shows allows the larger population to continue their view that the 50s and early 60s were an idyllic time. 

    Quick aside, as a kid, after watching an episode of Happy Days I asked my mom if black people existed back then.  My mom was angry and in hindsight I completely understand why–we are so under represented in media that her child didn’t realize that the show was depicting her teen years.

  • Eva

    Lenora Crichlow from “Being Human” UK version.

  • http://commentarybyvalentina.wordpress.com/ Val

     Thanks.

  • http://twitter.com/Ellington3 Rhonda Yearwood

    I know that this has not been mentioned but what are the reviewers thoughts on the show Scandal?
    I watched one episode of it as I wanted to give it a go and I like Kerry Washington.
    I am not a Shonda Rhimes fan, I do not watch either of her doctor shows as I just could not get interested in the characters.
    I have to say that I did not care for Scandal, I found it a tad cliche and predictable. My mother came in while it was on and she said “who talks to people like that? no one really talks like that.” and then she left the room.
    I do not think I will be watching it again as I did not enjoy it.
    That said I  thought  that Jay Pharoah was hilarious as the bizarre Principal Frye, I was laughing at that sketch so much! I hope he does get more screen time, and he just might with Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudakis and Andy Samburg leaving
    Too bad about Annie leaving Being Human UK. I really like her character and I hope her leaving also means that there won’t be any protagonists of colour anymore.

    As for Glee I stopped watching that show after the 2nd season. The last straw for me was when the talented Kristen Chenoweth’s ridiculous character said she was leaving the Glee Club to produce an all White version of The Wiz. That really peeved  me.