Loving 'Single Ladies'

If you Google the term 'Single Ladies', you get a lot of hits referring to Beyonce's monster hit song.   The one I'm talking about is the Queen Latifah produced VH1 show starring Stacey Dash, LisaRaye McCoy and Charity Shea that started on May 30 with a two hour pilot movie.  

Single Ladies the TV show was created and produced by Stacy A. Littlejohn and directed by Tamra Davis.  It chronicles the ATL lives of best friends Valerie Stokes, Keisha Greene, April Goldberg-Jenkins and Val's intern Christina Carter.  

Valerie (Stacey Dash) is getting over the breakup of her long term relationship and has just bought and is running a high fashion boutique in an upscale part of Atlanta.   She's still a hopeless romantic despite her recent breakup with Quinn.  

Keisha (LisaRaye McCoy)  is a former music video model who is more jaded and hard nosed about the male species than her homegirl and believes the head needs to take primacy over the hear in matter of love.

April (Charity Shea) is the ambitious married woman in the trio who not only wants more responsibility at the record company she works at, she's starting to get the seven year itch in her marriage with Darryl.

It's getting some comparisons to Sex In The City, but I'm liking what i see in the three episodes so far.  The folks I've seen so far in the cameo appearances are Common, Eve, Rick Fox, Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas of TLC fame and Michael Warren.

Common was playing the philandering mayor of Atlanta who gets caught up in a major sex scandal with one of the characters.   You'll have to go back and watch the series to find out which one.  

New episodes are broadcast on Monday nights at 9 PM ET and VH1 has it contracted out for 12 episodes.

From what I'm seeing so far, hope they do more over a few more seasons.

Happy 40th Birthday Tupac

"I want to grow. I want to be better. You Grow. We all grow. We're made to grow.  You either evolve or you disappear. "   Tupac Shakur


Today would have been the 40th birthday of actor and rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur had he not been gunned down in Las Vegas back in 1996. 

As of 2007 he'd sold over 75 million albums worldwide and 37.5 million of them in the US alone under his stage names of 2Pac and Makaveli. 

But when he died on September 13 at age 25, many of us since then have wondered what would have happened if Tupac was still living on Planet Earth right now and was able to celebrate his birthday today?

No doubt he'd probably still be recording and acting.   Would have loved to had him around to see and hear his reactions to the 2000 and 2004 selections, Hurricane Katrina and the election of President Obama along with other issues impacting the African American community that he expounded about in his rap songs and poetry.   

Would Will Smith had much stiffer competition for the heart of Jada Pinkett had he been around since both Pac and Jada have admitted they had a special friendship back in their high school days and she only got married to Will in 1997?

We'll never know that and the answer to other questions since he was taken away from us way too soon thanks to senseless violence.
 
Happy birthday, Tupac.  Your voice is definitely missed.

Yo HBO, Where's The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency Season 2?

One of the joys of the 2009 television season for me was getting to watch Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose and the rest of the cast of the wonderful Peabody Award winning television series on HBO entitled The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency.

It was such an enjoyable show for me when it hit DVD I bought it for my collection as I eagerly awaited news along with the rest of its fans for the announcement it had been renewed for a second season.   There were rumors pro and con, but no confirmation of filming for new episodes, much less word from HBO about the popular show getting a second season.     

Finally came the August 2010 announcement from HBO Michael Lombardo that the show wasn't being renewed for a second season, but two feature length films were being considered.  

Frankly, I and the shows fans would rather have the television series.     

It's rare that you have a dramatic series featuring a predominately African descended cast portrayed in a non stereotypical manner.  It's even rarer that said show is based and set in an African nation like Botswana, one of the nations that since independence in 1966, has been well run and wisely managed its mineral wealth to the benefit of its people.         

If any show deserved to be on the air, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency was it.   But since it portrays African descended people in a positive light, it's gone.

We'll see if the feature length films based on the series get made, but not holding my breath on that one.

Getting Into 'The Game'

I was a huge fan of the Mara Brock Akil produced show Girlfriends and was more than a little upset when it was canceled.   But in the process of faithfully watching it when I had the opportunity I discovered its spinoff show called The Game that debuted in 2006.

There was an April 17, 2006 episode of Girlfriends entitled 'The Game' in which Joan Clayton's first cousin Melanie Barnett has decided to turn down Johns Hopkins Med School and put her career plans on hold in order to follow her collegiate athlete boyfriend Derwin Davis.  Joan of course tries to talk her cousin out of it and sticking to her plans of becoming a doctor.

The CW liked it enough to turn it into a show with debuted on October 1, 2006 with Tia Mowry playing Melanie and Pooch Hall playing Derwin.    Latasha 'Tasha' Mack is played by another of my fave actresses, Wendy Raquel Robinson, with Kelly and Jason Pitts being played by Brittany Daniel and Coby Bell.  

Derwin begins life as a San Diego Sabers rookie wide receiver as Melanie begins to juggle med school and being the girlfriend of a professional athlete.   She is introduced to Tasha, the mother of Sabers quarterback Malik Wright and Kelly, a former Sabers cheerleader who is the wife of wide receiver and team captain Jason.  Kelly is also president of the Sabers wives and girlfriends group called the Sunbeams.


They immediately advise her that being a girlfriend of a pro athlete is a full time job in itself and you have to watch out for the women that will come swarming after Derwin as the three of them become friends.

Over the three seasons it was on the CW there was plenty of drama, a lot of real life NFL athletes and Hollywood and music stars doing cameo roles on it before the show  was canceled in May 2009.




It was in syndication on BET before it got canceled, and has grown more popular since it left the CW.   BET has decided it wants to develop more original programming and The Game dovetailed nicely with BET's plans.  After doing some negotiations, they got the green light to do a fourth season of all new episodes.

Tia Mowry and Pooch Hall will be back along with Wendy Raquel Robinson and much of the original writing team.   Coby Bell and Brittany Daniel will be in recurring roles.

The storyline is also going to pick up where it left off with Derwin and Melanie now being married.   But it's going to be interesting to see what drama transpires for the newlyweds, if Tasha and Kelly's friendship can be repaired or if Kelly and Jason will get back together.
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The all new episodes will air on BET starting January 11, 2011 and I can't wait to get back into The Game.