Tracee Ellis Ross

“Hair Tales” soars with Black history

It’s a subject that’s close to most people, elusive to some.
It sometimes soars above us, sometimes not. It droops or dazzles or delights or just disappears.
We’re talking about hair, and the special role it has had in Black history, before and after the Afro-powered (shown here) ’70s. Now that’s the subject of “Hair Tales,” a six-hour series available on Hulu and (9 p.m. Saturdays) on the Oprah Winfrey Network. 
Yes, six hours on hair. There’s a lot to talk about, said producer Michaela Angela Davis. “There’s joy, there’s resilience, there’s challenge. There’s history … there’s hysteria.”

Read more…

“Black-ish” savors its season-long finale

TV shows, even the popular ones, used to end without warning.
Tracee Ellis Ross remembers that from “Girlfriends.” After a cozy, eight-season run, it simply vanished.
“We didn’t know the show was ending,” Ross recalled in a Television Critics Association virtual press conference. “We didn’t get a wrap party; we didn’t get a finale – none of that.”
Now she has the opposite experience on “Black-ish” (shown here). Before work began on this eighth season (9:30 p.m. Tuesdays, ABC), everyone knew this would be the last. Read more…

In comedy form, TV ponders being biracial

TV has had approximately three zillion comedy episodes, some of them topical and timely.
Few, however, have dealt with the common situation of being bi-racial.
“For me, (it) is to be comfortable everywhere and to be at home nowhere,” said Peter Saji, a producer of ABC’s new “Mixed-ish” series (shown here). Read more…