So sorry for not making a post in awhile, but I have not had too much time to write. With this being the last week in Black History Month, I am going to talk about my favorite black shows that did not get a last episode. Back when we had actual sitcoms on television instead of all the reality TV mess (I’m over the Basketball Wives, Mob Wives, should be called Hot Mess Ex-Wives) there were some good TV shows. The late 90’s and early 2000’s gave us some great shows like Moesha, Girlfirends, and Everybody Hates Chris. And unfortunately all these shows went off the air without as much as a goodbye.
Black shows leaving television without a series finale is not new. In the 80’s, Sherman Hemsley better known as George Jefferson from The Jeffersons found out that the show was canceled by reading it in the paper. I am not one to throw the “race card” but black shows do not always get the respecting farewell they deserve. I will always have a bitter place in my heart for these shows’ abrupt exit:
Moesha If you were a young black person in the mid-90’s, every Monday night your TV was on UPN and you were glued to your screen watching the latest Moesha episode. We literally watched Brandy grow up before our eyes. We loved her girls, Kim and Niecy. And toward the end we were torn between Moesha choosing between Hakeem and Q. The last season the show took a very serious turn. We found out that Dorian or “D-Money” was Frank’s son instead of his nephew and Moesha was in her feelings about that every week. Then the next to last episode leaves us with a cliff hanger: Myles gets kidnapped. Then the next week…… no show and no explanation of why there was no show. I felt cheated considering that I had supported the show for so long. Yes, I am STILL bitter about this.
Girlfriends I LOVED this show. It was truly the black version of Sex and The City. This show took not so famous black actresses and made them famous. Joan, Toni, Maya, and Lynn gave us LIFE every week. And William was freakin awesome considering the fact he was the only male lead on the show. Every week we wondered if Joan would find love and we cheered Maya on for her book Oh, Hell Naw. The first downfall was when Jill Marie Jones (Toni) left the show. William’s new wife I guess was supposed to take her place, but the show was never quite the same. Then Joan finally got a man but in pure Joan fashion something had to be wrong. In this case, her fiancé was in Iraq for the war. So we were not sure if we would see her get married or not. Around this same time, TV writers went on strike and some shows suffered including Girlfriends. Girlfriends never got a finale but, hey, at least we got a spin-off, The Game (by the way, is anyone still watching that show?).
Everybody Hates Chris For this last show I might be at fault for this show not having a finale. This show had a slow start. It was based off the comedian Chris Rock’s life. Tichina Arnold (aka Pam from Martin) played Rochelle, Chris’s mom. And she was just as hilarious on this show as she was Martin. Tyler James Williams played the title character and he was hilarious. Terry Crews played Chris’ penny-pitching dad, Julius (You just spilled 42 cents of milk on that table, lol). The next to last episode left the same way Moesha left us, with a cliffhanger. We were left wondering if Chris ever got his GED. What I do remember about this show is that it premiered during the transition from UPN to CW and CW started moving the black shows to all these weird times. So honestly, I never knew the show’s timeslot. By the time we realized this was a good show, it had already been cancelled. But we can still check out the reruns on BET.
As I was writing this post I realized all these shows were on the once UPN network. This was the channel that was giving our shows a chance to thrive and get a fan base. These shows showed black people in a positive light and I will always love these shows for that. I hate they did not get their farewells but I like to think that these casts will reassemble and give us the finale we (or at least me) want to see. *crosses fingers
I loved all these shows. These shows should have had a farewell like so many shows of today get to have. It seems black shows are always left hanging when networks change or are left without some much of a cute little ribbon tie ending that the views look forward to at the end of great shows.
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