BEL-AIR: A SHOW THAT’S NOT QUITE SURE WHAT IT IS, OR WHAT IT WANTS TO BE

Bel-Air is an American Drama Television Series developed by Morgan Cooper, Malcolm Spellman, TJ Brady, and Rasheed Newson. It is a reimagined reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the Sitcom that ran from 1990-1996, and is based on Cooper's short fan film of the same name. It stars Jabari Banks, Adrian Holmes, Cassandra Freeman, Olly Sholotan, Coco Jones, Akira Akbar, Jimmy Akingbola, Jordan L. Jones, and Simone Joy Jones. The series premiered on Peacock on February 13, 2022. The second season was released on February 23, 2023. In March 2023, the series was renewed for a third season.

The show currently has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an Audience Score of just 75%. It also has a Metascore of 60 (based on 31 critic reviews) on Metacritic, with a User Score of 6.0 (based on only 16 Ratings) and a 6.4/10 on IMDB (based on 12,000 reviews).

So, the most obvious elephant in the room with this show is that it’s a reimagining of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, not just a good black television show that ran during the golden age of the Black Sitcom, but an iconic one. In my mind, that made this endeavor a silly one from the outset, especially since you can stream the original show on more than one streaming service, still I decided to give the show a chance, just off of my love for its predecessor, but this show has a lot of issues.

First, turning the show from a thirty-minute sitcom to an hour-long drama sucked a lot of what made the original show so great. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was fun and light-hearted, even though it did touch on serious issues from time to time. Also, it’s clear that Jabari Banks has his work cut out for him trying to fill the shoes of Will Smith. The acting is also not as strong as it was in the original, which is made more apparent being that the reboot is a drama instead of a comedy. As the plot meanders on, the story beats vacillate between exact replicas of those that were in the original show and new ones that have been added, but it just gives the show a discombobulated feel, especially because the story is set in present day instead of the early to mid-nineties, like the original.

This show isn’t quite sure what it wants to be. It has tried to replace the joy and charisma of the old show with over the top drama and heavy-handed symbolism while leaning far too heavily on nostalgia, in an attempt to replicate the popularity of its predecessor.

The show is currently available on Peacock (with subscription) and Apple TV. You can also watch it by the episode on Vudu ($1.99/Episode) and Amazon Prime Video ($2.99/Episode).