"Reed Between the Lines"

I’ve caught two episodes of Reed Between the Lines, a new sitcom on BET and saw some of the reviews from my Facebook and Twitter peers. I have mixed feelings. If you haven’t heard about it or haven’t seen it, it’s about an African American middle to upper class family that deals with everyday life. Tracee Ellis Ross plays Dr. Carla Reed (psychologist) and Malcolm-Jamal Warner plays Dr. Alex Reed (college professor) and they have three children. I would call it a more renewed version of the Cosby show from the 1980s, 1990s. I don’t think I’m the only one that feels that way.

When I saw the previews for the show, my immediate thought was that this was like the Cosbys—very upbeat, on the surface issues with professional parents with intelligent children and the show always will end with a happy-go-lucky conclusion. The Cosby show fit the era that it was in because at that time, it seemed like everything had a happy ending. Television wasn’t as raw as it is today. I thought maybe that this type of show wouldn’t fit the standards (or lack there of) of television today. On the flip side, however; television has gotten so raw and so blatant with reality shows, court shows, music videos and even commercials (the TUMs commercial that has the piece of meat hitting Grandma in the face is just crazy) that I hardly like to watch TV anymore. Everyone in the world has a reality show. Reality “stars”, if we can call them that are leaving one show and grabbing their own. How do you have a spin off from a reality show?

BET fell in the same line as the other cable networks. It worked for VH1 and MTV to put six to seven 20 something’s in a stylish looking home and add cameras and BOOM! You got a hit. Then you add a couple of dating shows, game shows and award shows, throw in 106 & Park and that was your line up for the year. After awhile, it got really repetitive and boring. I personally stopped watching BET. I didn’t care to watch Soul Plane (never seen it and don’t plan to) or watch videos to songs I didn’t care to hear on the radio. I gave up on BET.

Now to the present…Reed Between the Lines. When I first watched it, I told myself to watch it with an open mind. Give it a chance no matter what. Yes, it might seem a little cheesy and campy and done before but give it a chance because it’s different from what we’re seeing on TV, particularly BET. Family oriented African American sitcoms are few, far and between these days. I watched. For the show, if there was something they could to not make it look so Cosby show, I think it might help. I love Malcolm Jamal Warner as an actor but he on the show just adds to that Cosby effect. On the other side of that, I hope we as a community do keep an open mind to watch this show. It is definitely an image that needs to be seen again. We need more shows (a real show, not reality shows…if that makes sense). We need shows with more positive images on TV. We (my generation) had A Different World, Mr. Cooper, Living Single, Martin, Family Matters, Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Moesha. Then all of a sudden, African American sitcoms with a message and humor just dried up. I applaud BET for doing this show and I hope it sticks around. I’m going to give BET two more points for FINALLY showing movies other than Belly, Belly 2, Soul Plane and Dirty Laundry. No offense to any of those movies, but when I saw that they were showing Stomping at the Savoy, Eve’s Bayou, Harlem Nights, Sister 2, and Stomp the Yard, I was too happy. Hopefully, BET is trying to move in the right direction to balance out the images they show on TV. Now….can we bring back Teen Summit?