![]() And after her gig, "Saturday Night Live" saw fit for the first time in nearly half a century to elevate an East Asian performer, Bowen Yang, to the status of ensemble cast. Comedy Central has already picked it up for a second season.Īwkwafina, by the way, became the first woman of Asian descent to host "Saturday Night Live" for 18 years when she did the honors in 2018. "Fresh Off the Boat" leaves us in the midst of the first season run of Comedy Central's " Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens," a show centered upon its eponymous star (and Wu's "Crazy Rich Asians" co-star) that prominently centers Nora's family, including her father (played by B.D. People should also appreciate the show's status as the only broadcast primetime series that features a co-star regularly speaking Mandarin, in the form of Lucille Soong's straight-faced Grandma Huang.Īll of these are major accomplishments when one remembers there was a gap of more than two decades between sitcoms starring Asian American ensembles. Its writers also used the show's primetime platform to tell vital stories about racism and immigration through the Huangs' experience without abandoning its comedic spirit. ![]() It's a series starring Asian Americans telling its version of universally relatable stories about the human experience without negating the family's shared cultural identity or sidelining each character's individual personality. But in a way, that was the point: "Fresh Off the Boat" doesn't exist as a network's performative token of inclusion. His criticisms have merit all of these characters, even Wu's sharp and hard-to-please Jessica, represent fairly formulaic archetypes in the world of broadcast sitcoms. The real Eddie Huang – on whose memoir the series is based – himself voiced his disapproval the series' middle-of-the-road interpretation of his story and fictionalized persona after it premiered, which didn't significantly impact the show's fortunes. Middle brother Emery (Forrest Wheeler) distinguishes himself as the cute kid who somehow becomes the neighborhood crush, and youngest Evan (Ian Chen) is a studious genius. Yang's Eddie starts out the series as a hip-hop obsessed kid doing everything he can to be seen as cool and navigating between his demanding mother and Park's kindly dad Louis. In fact, the tone of "Fresh Off the Boat has more in common with those shows than "Modern Family," making it less a TV comedy innovator than a keen adapter of ABC's family-friendly model, one that joyfully conveys one kid's experience of growing up Asian American in Orlando during the 1990s. ![]() Actually, its ending is right on time – in sync, even, with the departure of "Modern Family." That ABC major sitcom hit influenced the network's comedy lineup for most of its existence – much to the chagrin, it must be said, of the loyal audiences for critically under-appreciated red state-appealing comedies such as "The Middle" and "Last Man Standing." (Khan's next project with her "FOTB" co-producer Jeff Chiang is NBC's "Young Rock," a comedy based on Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's formative years spent growing up in Hawaii.)Įnding in a place of dignity is always better for any show's legacy, and "Fresh Off the Boat" meets that bar by ending now. With other cast members' contracts expiring and creator Nahnatchka Khan hopping over to Universal TV and Netflix, the writing was on the wall. Until the arrival of "Roseanne" and the monstrous ratings resulting from that, the series fit in smoothly with "The Middle" and "Black-ish" the former ended in 2018, and the latter is still airing and produced two spinoffs.īesides, by the time ABC booted "Fresh Off the Boat" to Fridays in the 2018-2019 season, Wu already set her sights on a film career, and its ascendance began following the enormous success of the 2018 theatrical blockbuster "Crazy Rich Asians" in its wake she was not shy about her desire to leave the show. Rather, "Fresh Off the Boat" – starring Constance Wu, Randall Park, and Hudson Yang –modestly held its own on ABC's Tuesday nights amidst a comedy lineup that kept shifting around it (mostly consisting of series that no longer exist) because of the cast's appeal, primarily Wu's breakout portrayal of family matriarch Jessica Huang. If that had been the case, it wouldn't have crossed the 100-episode mark in 2019, traditionally seen as the threshold for lucrative syndication deals. Judging by the ratings for its current season " Fresh Off the Boat," which airs its series finale on Friday night, the ABC comedy will end quietly relative to its debut in 2015's midseason line-up.įor the record – and this cannot be overstated – "Fresh Off the Boat" is ending for reasons that defy the conventional, exclusionary Hollywood assumption that viewers didn't want to watch a series featuring an ensemble cast of color and centering the stories about a Taiwanese-American family.
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