Mixed-Ish

Some knucklehead at ABC decided it would be a good idea to once again try to spin a series off the very successful Black-ish. They previously tried to spin eldest daughter Zoe off into her own college comedy, but that was cancelled after like two episodes. Now they have decide to go another direction and create a spinoff that is also a prequel to the original series. Fans of Black-ish should be aware that the character of Rainbow Johnson (Tracee Elliss Ross) is the product of a mixed marriage and was raised on a commune. This series looks at Rainbow's coming of age as a teenager when she, her parents, and her brother, Johann and her sister, Santamonica, had to leave the commune and become legitimate suburbanites. Conveniently, Rainbow's mom (Tika Sumpter) is a lawyer who agrees to go work at a law firm run by her fat cat father-in-law (Gary Cole), while Rainbow's dad (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) stays home and grows vegetables. I just want to file this under unnecessary spinoffs...did we really need to know how Rainbow grew up? The writers even showed their lack of confidence in the idea by having the whole thing pitched in the first 10 minutes by the cast of Black-ish and Having Tracee Ellis Ross serve as narrator, but it was really to no avail...the writing is preachy, rich with dated messages delivered with a sledgehammer approach and the actors aren't really funny. As you might expect, the only true laughs in the pilot came from Gary Cole as the father-in-law and watching the not-aging-too-well Mark-Paul Gosselaar was a little depressing. I give it until Christmas.