This is Progress?

Amidst the recent spate of 90s nostalgia-inspired tv reboots is a curious lack of black shows, which were abundant in record numbers during the decade;

But it wasn’t always this way. The '90s were the last real golden age for black representation on TV, peaking in 1997 with almost two dozen black comedies on the air. On these shows, blacks were respectfully treated as multidimensional humans. They were the butler and the head of the household (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air); they were the jock and the nerd (Smart Guy); they were the geek next door and the hunk (Family Matters, duh). They were both seen and heard, telling necessary stories about the black experience in America that, as old clips from The Fresh Prince prove, are still painfully prescient.

After 1997, however, came a sharp decline that has only deepened with time — ABC’s black-ish is currently the only black comedy on network TV, and it's the first one in five years. In cherry-picking shows with mostly white casts from the '90s to reboot, the TV industry is both extending that dry period and missing out on shows that could probably perform as well as some of those that are getting the nod. (Sure, Twin Peaks was a key moment in auteurist TV, but does it really have a following beyond cultists today?)