Bel-Air premieres on Peacock Feb. 13, 2022.
In our current media existence of “everything old is new again,” there’s no shortage of once popular properties getting reimagined for today’s audiences. The latest is Bel-Air, based on the classic sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And upon watching the pilot episode, the sage words of another great ‘90s creation, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) of Jurassic Park, came immediately to mind: “[They] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” And that’s because Bel-Air is the humorless, Black Mirror version of the beloved comedy that begs the question: who exactly is this for?
It’s been 22 years since The Fresh Prince dropped on NBC, and because of that, it’s certainly reasonable that the vehicle that made Will Smith a television star is ripe for a contemporary reworking, perhaps as a single-camera comedy that deftly satirizes the racial, societal, and socioeconomic issues that have only been exacerbated in the last two decades. But Bel-Air has instead done a 180 by going for an altogether different format; a straight drama, crafted with a very somber tone. Yet what remains frustratingly the same is the Fresh Prince premise, including Will (Jabari Banks) as the fish-out-of-water protagonist, along with the rest of the sitcom’s ensemble characters with their tropes intact. With a foot firmly anchored in both realities, Bel-Air makes for a disconcerting watch as it permeates everything, like a creative albatross, that only serves to take us out of the new imagining over and over again.
Bel-Air is executive produced by Smith and is co-showrun by T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson (The Chi) and has an overall vibe similar to other soapy contemporary dramas like The Chi and Power, or as the way more bleepable cousin of The CW’s All American. In the pilot episode, “Dreams and Nightmares,” the writers immediately set their own troubling precedent by weaving in a myriad of callbacks to the sitcom that never stop. From Will's opening nightmare of a graffiti throne room that's a homage to the original’s theme song opening credits to those lyrics being seeded into the dialogue and even the intro of a new Jazzy Jeff (Jordan L. Jones), there’s a relentless barrage of rib nudges within the script and the visuals that never let us forget that we’ve seen this before, but now it’s different.
What does stand out as unique about this pilot is the very clear stakes. The strong opening act makes it apparent that Banks’ Will is more of a golden child in his West Philly high school: popular, getting good grades, and a basketball star with recruitment potential. Clearly not the dorky neighborhood cut-up, this Will is also more temperamental, especially when pushed by the local drug dealers who don’t like that he won’t work for them. When Will’s ego is dented in public, he drags his best friend Tray (SteVonté Hart) into a high-stakes 2-on-2 street game against the neighborhood dealer’s flunky that ends up angering the local drug lord and gets Will arrested. Far from “a little fight,” the amplified stakes put Will’s life in imminent danger, which is why his scared mom, Vy (April Parker Jones), packs him off to family in Los Angeles the next morning.
There’s not much lightheartedness as Will’s whole identity is left behind, which is the angst engine of Bel-Air. And there’s no breathing room for us, or Will, to have a measured transition. In fact, he arrives during a massive fundraising party hosted at his Uncle Phil (Adrian Holmes) and Aunt Viv’s (Cassandra Freeman) palatial estate in Bel-Air. He gets a whirlwind reunion with his friendly but extremely bougie cousins — Carlton (Olly Sholotan), Hilary (Coco Jones), and Ashley (Akira Akbar) — and is found lacking by the elite business people and politicians assembled to kick off Phil’s candidacy for District Attorney.
What follows is a choppy hybrid of the aspirational opulence of the uber rich Banks’ lifestyle with the lingering unresolved guilt Will has about leaving his mom and Tray behind in Philly. And Will is still within the boundaries of jetlag, when he’s made to navigate an array of way-too-fast storylines in the first hour. There’s a feud with Carlton, a potential love triangle involving Carlton’s ex (Simone Joy Jones), an emotional confrontation with his uncle that the original took four seasons to earn, a racial confrontation at Will’s new school, and even a potential drowning. It’s too much to do well, even with the able cast trying hard to make it all seem reasonable. To his credit, Banks is a charismatic lead, but he’s not allowed to run with the wit that is so important in defining the Will character. And then there’s the constant Easter eggs to the sitcom that never allow this show to disconnect from the past and find its own groove.
Truly, there was no need for Bel-Air to tether itself so deeply to the Fresh Prince’s sandbox. If it instead was lightly inspired by its predecessor and bravely subverted expectations by changing things up immediately, the show would have only benefited from that distance. Instead, everything is constrained by the past, from Phil still being bald to Geoffrey’s (Jimmy Akingbola) slight upgrade to house manager with an exotic accent, and there’s nothing organic about this drama trying to force a sitcom square peg into its dramatic round hole. If Bel-Air has any hope of succeeding on its own merits, it needs to become its own thing sooner than later and tell the past to “smell ya later.”
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/XicV8m4
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