ABC Renews ‘Black-ish’ For Season 6, Picks Up 80’s Spin-Off ‘Mixed-ish’
ABC has renewed comedy ‘Black-ish‘ for a 6th Season, along with picking up a new ’80s set spin-off series, ‘Mixed-ish‘.
‘Black-ish’, follows The Johnsons, an upper-middle-class African-American family led by Andre ‘Dre’ (Anthony Anderson) and Rainbow ‘Bow’ (Tracee Ellis Ross) Johnson. Like any parent, want to give their children the best, but their offspring’s childhood is turning out to be much different than theirs.
The renewal isn’t a huge surprise, given that the critically acclaimed comedy has received a Peabody Award and several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, including a Golden Globe win for Tracee Ellis Ross in 2017. It swept the 2019 NAACP Image Awards’ Outstanding Comedy Series category for the fifth year in a row, among other honours. The comedy also spawned the spinoff ‘Grown-ish’, which was renewed in February for a 3rd Season, and is about to spawn a second spin-off series.
‘Mixed-ish’ sees Tracee Ellis Ross’ Bow recounting her experience growing up in a mixed-race family in the ’80s and the constant dilemmas they had to face over whether to assimilate or stay true to themselves. Bow’s parents Paul and Alicia decide to move from a hippie commune to the suburbs to better provide for their family. As her parents struggle with the challenges of their new life, Bow and her siblings navigate a mainstream school in which they’re perceived as neither black nor white. This family’s experiences illuminate the challenges of finding one’s own identity when the rest of the world can’t decide where you belong.
The series stars Arica Himmel as young Bow Johnson, Tika Sumpter as Alicia Johnson, Christina Anthony as Denise, Mykal-Michelle Harris as Santamonica Johnson and Ethan Childress as Johan Johnson.
The spin-off was originally conceived as a backdoor pilot, with the episode ‘Becoming Bow’ airing as a standalone episode of ‘Black-ish’ this season. However, now the show has already been greenlit to series by ABC, that episode has been bumped to next season.
Peter Saji and Kenya Barris are writers and executive producers along with Tracee Ellis Ross, Randall Winston, Artists First (Brian Dobbins), Cinema Gypsy (Laurence Fishburne and Helen Sugland) and Anthony Anderson. This series is produced by ABC Studios.
‘Black-ish‘ airs on E4 in the UK. ‘Grow-ish’ does not have a UK broadcaster at the moment, and it’s way too early for a pick up on ‘Mixed-ish’, but we’ll let you know if and when we here more.
