Bill Inoshita/CBS 2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.The Neighborhood
CBS
Premieres: Oct. 1
Airs: Mondays at 8pm ET/PT
Who’s In It? Cedric the Entertainer, Max Greenfield, Beth Behrs, Tichina Arnold, Marcel Spears, Sheaun McKinney
What’s It All About? Dave (New Girl’s Greenfield) and Gemma (2 Broke Girls’ Behrs), a white couple from Michigan, move into a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, and — surprise! — they find it’s harder to fit in than they thought. Cedric the Entertainer plays their next-door neighbor Calvin, who is distrustful of the newcomers and thinks they’re going to gentrify the neighborhood (“This is a black neighborhood, something built for us by us.”). Making matters worse, Dave tries embarrassingly hard to gain Calvin’s approval.
The series is loosely based on the real-life experiences of creator/executive producer Jim Reynolds. “This is a show about families, about neighbors, about friendship, those universal themes and relationships that we all know and are familiar with,” Reynolds says.
Cedric the Entertainer believes that his character isn’t simply a black Archie Bunker. “We can’t really be afraid of that, the idea that people do have biases, that they do have these kind of strong opinions,” he says. “My character has to be a person that can grow to a place.”
The Neighborhood has potential but too often stumbles over its positive premise of inclusivity with jokes that fall flat. CBS has often been criticized for a lack of diversity in its lineup, and The Neighborhood tries too hard to fit in.
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