Allen persisted, re-recruiting Pride: “It needs to be you,” Allen told her. As Pride puts it, “You don’t say no to Debbie.” (Others are equally and p
Allen persisted, re-recruiting Pride: “It needs to be you,” Allen told her. As Pride puts it, “You don’t say no to Debbie.” (Others are equally and passionately committed to Allen. The reboot wasn’t going to happen without her, says Hardison. “Not for me. She’s the mama.”)
Reggie Rock Bythewood and Gina Prince-Bythewood, who met while working in the original show’s writers’ room—they were hired a week apart, and have been together ever since—came back to serve as executive producers on the reboot, together with Mandy Summers and Tom Werner. It’s an especially fitting homecoming for the Bythewoods, whose youngest son now attends Morehouse College. In an interview, Gina remembers the acclaimed episode that Reggie wrote about dating violence, and a character whose boyfriend was beating her. The letters they received showed them that they were having an impact, she says, and that “how we see ourselves, what we normalize for ourselves, is important.”
Finally, a crew had been assembled that would do the original show justice. Episode one jumps right in, focusing on the university’s budget crisis and funding cuts to predominantly Black institutions. Other season one storylines include a campus bomb threat, an ICE raid, the ongoing suppression of Black history, STDs, homophobia, chronic illness, and Black health. This time around, writers won’t be told that students can’t talk about the Amistad. Netflix has shown a tendency to be more social justice–oriented than most conventional networks; its reboot of another beloved ’80s sitcom, One Day at a Time, tackled subjects like Cuban immigration, addiction, voting, PTSD, and veteran healthcare.
The streamer’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos bought the novel A Different World an hour or two after Pride and Allen pitched it and immediately was behind their goal of portraying a myriad of Black experiences and identities. “The success of A Different World had tremendous reaction worldwide,” says Allen. “I think Netflix was already poised to come in with a response that was very positive.” In addition to Deborah, the novel class of Hillman students includes Shaquille, a superstar athlete who could have gone to any number of universities, but chose an HBCU; Harlem-born Amir, who is gay and did a stint in juvenile detention; Hazel, the church-going daughter of a preacher; Kojo, who is British by way of Ghana and Nigeria; and Rashida, an outspoken student leader from Compton.
The original was a multicam show; the novel version is shot with a cinematic, single-camera sensibility. It’s designed to evoke a specific history and mood: Framed sepia-toned photos of adolescent HBCU students from bygone eras in the background, along with strategically placed candid shots of political figures like Barbara Jordan and Michelle Obama. Exteriors were shot on actual HBCU campuses in the Atlanta area—Clark, Spelman, and Morehouse—unlike the original, which was filmed on a Studio City soundstage. Banned books like Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower appear in dorm rooms or on the shelves of The Pit. Writer and co-executive producer Lisa McQuillan found this aspect of the set design especially refreshing: “It’s nice to see book titles at all on a TV screen.”
