Fresh off the boat series#

By the end of a long New York Magazine piece, he had somewhat demurred, acknowledging that it took 'chutzpah' for the network to include the word 'chink' in the pilot.

Fresh off the boat series#

Equally exciting was the fact that it offered a rare opportunity for people to think and write about diversity on television as more than just an abstract goal (or a harbinger of some dreaded age of ethnic-casting quotas).īefore the show’s two-part premiere episode aired, Eddie Huang, the chef and writer whose memoir inspired the show, openly shared his misgivings about how the series had significantly watered down his life experiences. Even while recognizing the futility of trying to capture some universal Asian American experience, the prospect of seeing how Fresh Off the Boat would handle this responsibility was exciting. With television, before you can talk about ornamentation like motifs, pacing, and story arcs, you first have to talk about who’s being seen and whose stories are being told.

But visibility isn't such a lofty aim it's simply a starting point for a medium that's inherently visual. So much of the initial conversation (both handwringing and jubilation) about Fresh Off The Boat revolved around issues of representation and visibility. The show doesn't need to wait for another series to come along and improve on what it's done. ( Deep Space Nine and Voyager follow a similar pattern.) A show as groundbreaking as Fresh Off the Boat shouldn't let the conventions of the network sitcom limit its subject matter or potential for incisiveness. The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation is far weaker than, say, its fifth, sixth, or seventh. Parks and Recreation's bland first year gave way to six of the finest seasons in modern sitcom history. Buffy the Vampire Slayer began its run as a clever and charming bit of television only to up the stakes in season two, moving past its initial focus on the anxieties of high-school life. Plenty of television shows have started out as decent (or even mediocre or bad) only to transcend their earlier years in thematic complexity. Other lapses included efforts to milk laughs out of Eddie's attempts to hit on older girls based on behavior he picked up from rap videos.

It didn't always work: In an episode titled 'Blind Spot,' Jessica realizes that her old college boyfriend is actually gay, and her ex-flame is rendered as a mostly flat stereotype in a 'Gaysian' T-shirt.

In fact, many of Fresh Off the Boat's smartest moments involved pointing out bigotry or myopic thinking in order to subvert them. Some shows ( I'm looking at you, 30 Rock) have excelled at using two-dimensional depictions to create elevated commentary about issues like race, sexual orientation, or gender. Unlike with All-American Girl, the first Asian American family sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat hasn't blown its chances: The show doesn't need to wait for another series to come along and improve on what it's done.Īs with any show, Fresh Off the Boat's first season had its missteps, mostly stemming from its not doing enough to distance itself from the very stereotypes it sought to critique. Having already proven its worth to audiences and critics, it's possible the show will take advantage of its enviable perch and head in the direction of even smarter, nuanced, and more progressive storylines. If (or when) it does, the question will be whether Fresh Off the Boat will continue to do more of the same kind of lighthearted, sitcommy storytelling-with stories like the show's young protagonist Eddie (Hudson Yang) running for school president, or Louis, the father (Randall Park), trying to sidestep his wife's controlling tendencies-or whether it'll raise the stakes. So what’s next? It's likely that next month, ABC will announce plans to renew the show for a second season.