SERIES PREMIERE: Here’s another of those rare TV shows that’s built around an actual, original idea, and has a distinct viewpoint to impart. In this case, it’s a series starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross as successful parents, and Laurence Fishburne as the family patriarch – all of whom, like their kids, have markedly different ideas about what it means to be true to their racial identity in suburbia in 2014 America. The jokes in the pilot are a little obvious, but the issues raised are much more pointed than the ones you usually find in network sitcoms these days. And the scenes between Anderson and Fishburne are the best in the opener, and suggest good possibilities for episodes to come. For a fuller review, see Gerald Jordan’s
Crossing Jordan.