Don’t Forget ‘All American’: The CW Series Is So Much More Than a Football Show
21.06.2022 - 23:09
/ variety.com
Emily Longeretta You think you’ve seen “All American” before and the plot isn’t new. It’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” with a group of Black friends and football. It’s a twist on “Friday Night Lights.” None of those things would be bad, but they’re not true.
Greg Berlanti was told just that when he pitched the show around nearly five years ago. Luckily, the CW’s Mark Pedowitz believed in the pitch.Now, after four seasons, it remains a big show for the network, which axed nine series — including “Legends of Tomorrow,” “Batwoman,” “Charmed” and “Legacies” — this year. But “All American” has been shining, thanks, in part, to its partnership with Netflix.
In fact, when the third season dropped on the platform, it shot to the top of Nielsen’s streaming rankings, racking up 1.43 billion minutes of watch time. “The first year it came out on the CW in 2018, it didn’t do as well as we all wanted it to do,” Berlanti says. “It took going to Netflix for it to explode and grow and now I think it’s their No.
1 show now. For me, it was about telling a point of view that I felt like hadn’t been on TV, but when I watch, it still feels like those early ‘Dawson’s Creek’ or ‘Everwood’ episodes.”That’s exactly how I explain it, and why I chose to write about it here.Showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll, who also created the spinoff, “All American: Homecoming,” which launched this year, tells stories that people can relate to. While the characters graduated from high school and are now in college, the themes in the show are universal no matter the age.The drama doesn’t shy away from serious topics including racial profiling, mental health, police brutality and gun violence; in fact, it tackles these topics head on and shows conversations between
.