TV Review - David Makes Man

Tarell Alvin McCraney is a writer who has risen in fame considerably over the past five years. He graduated from Yale University where he studied play-writing. His plays started being produced on stage in various cities beginning in 2007. His acclaim didn't shoot into the stratosphere until one of his plays was adapted into a film, a film which McCraney co-wrote. This garnered him his first, Academy Award nomination and his first Oscar win for the highly prestigious Moonlight (2016). That Oscar win and the spotlight from which has been used to parlay many projects. This series is one such project. While most of his work has tried to depict the African-American experience, he's addressed certain issues within that experience. The feel of them have been dramatically different. His film High Flying Bird (2019) and the Broadway production of his play Choir Boy (2019) feel dramatically different from each other, as well as from Moonlight. That showed potential and range for McCraney as a writer. However, this series doesn't feel dramatically different. It actually feels almost exactly like Moonlight. This whole thing could be called "Moonlight the Series."

Moonlight was a triptych that depicted the life of a young black man named Chiron over the course of his life. It started when he was a little boy. It then jumped to when he was a teenager. It then jumped to when he was an adult, skipping ten years or so each time. While there were undercurrents of homosexuality or same-sex attraction, the main thrust was about how this young black man observes drug dealing and criminality in his community or neighborhood and how he grows up to be a drug dealer and criminal himself. We don't see how he becomes a drug dealer or criminal. The film jumps in time and in an instant he goes from teenager to crime-lord basically. It's as if McCraney decided to use this series to fill in that jump in time or bridge that gap in his film.

Akili McDowell stars as David, a black boy about 14-years-old, living in poverty or a ghetto area, somewhere in Florida. He's the equivalent to Chiron. It looks like David even resides in the same area in Miami as where Moonlight was set. He gets up every morning and gets dressed in a very nice uniform. He then rides a bus to a very fancy school in seemingly a better or wealthier part of town. The school appears to have a predominance of black students but still the school is placed away from the impoverished environment from where David hails. David's mom has him going to that school as a way of making sure that he doesn't become like the boys in his neighborhood and deal drugs, but the dope boys, as they could be called, keep trying to pull him into the drug game. At the same time, McDowell does a decent job of portraying a young black man suffering from PTSD, after having witnessed a shooting in his neighborhood.

Depicting the drug game, shooting violence and even poverty within the black community isn't what's exciting and what the potential is for this series. We've seen those things explored in shows like HBO's The Wire and Starz's Power, as well as various other cop shows. The difference here is that the protagonist is a black teenager, which makes it somewhat different for television, although Showtime's The Chi has aspects of it and so does CW's All American. Obviously, that territory has been touched upon in cinema, particularly independent cinema. A black teen and even his black mother dealing with poverty and the illegal drug trade are important, but not overly enticing.

Nathaniel Logan McIntyre co-stars as Seren Kelly, a friend to David who's the same age and who's in the same class as David. However, Seren doesn't live in poverty and in the same neighborhood. Seren lives in a wealthy area and has parents who make a good deal of money. However, it's hinted that Seren is being abused, verbally and possibly sexually abused. He's told David about it but no one else. Seren does his best to be perfect and not get into trouble. It's also hinted that Seren has same-sex attraction or is queer in some way. It's also hinted that David could also have same-sex attraction. If so, Seren and David's friendship could blossom into something more.

That's where this series becomes interesting and enticing. After the success of a series like FX's Pose, it gives McCraney's series an opportunity to take it further and portray a gay male relationship between two teenage black boys. Freeform's The Fosters broke the barrier with having a gay kiss between two teen boys, the youngest gay male kiss on TV. McCraney's series could pick the ball and run with it. I hope that it does.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Wednesdays at 10PM on OWN.