TV Review - Kenan

Kenan Thompson is the Emmy-winning actor who is notable because he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2003. He's still apart of the cast as of 2021, making him the longest-tenured cast member in the show's history. He was nominated for the Emmy four times. Two times were for his acting. The other two times were for his writing, specifically the category of Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. Thompson has co-written songs for SNL. He won for the song "Come Back, Barack," which he performed with singer Chance the Rapper and fellow SNL cast member, Chris Redd. Thompson isn't new to sketch comedy. He started his career on Nickelodeon's All That (1994) when he was only 16. He was so successful and seen as so talented that he was given the lead in his own show called Kenan & Kel (1996).

25 years later, he now has his second TV show, built around him. The show has been in development for a couple of years. Some of it seems inspired by Thompson's actual life. The rest of it is highly invented. Unfortunately, that invented stuff is a bit cliché and hackneyed. First off, the series is Thompson as Kenan Williams, a single father raising two daughters with his brother, Gary, played by Chris Redd, and his father-in-law, Rick, played by Don Johnson. Kenan being a single father though is the first cliché and hackneyed thing about it.

Since the advent of television, there have been so many shows about single fathers, particularly widowed fathers. With the exception of Sanford and Son (1972) and Amen (1986), there haven't been too many of these shows about single fathers who are African-American. From The Andy Griffith Show (1960) to Full House (1987) to The Unicorn (2019), most, if not all are about white men. Those aforementioned shows about African-American men are about widowed fathers of adult children.

This one is about a widowed father of prepubescent children. This allows for the representation of a Black father raising young children in a way that we haven't often gotten. It's not to say that there haven't been Black fathers on film and TV. There have been. From Good Times (1974) to Black-ish (2014), that representation is there, but, within the niche of TV shows about single fathers or widowed fathers, which is large enough a niche to be a veritable genre, the lack of Black, single fathers or Black, widowed fathers is apparent, if you examine it. Nevertheless, that isn't enough to justify this series.

Thompson in real-life has two daughters. His character here having two daughters is something that was probably ripped from his own biography. Another thing that is ripped from his biography is the fact that he works on television. The character Thompson plays works in television too. Instead of a SNL type show, the character of Kenan works on a morning news program. I suppose they couldn't have him do a SNL type show because that would step on the toes too much of 30 Rock (2006). However, based on the initial episodes, it doesn't seem as if this series is going to have any real teeth to satirize or spoof the morning news programs.

The focus is going to be mainly focusing on Kenan dealing with the death of his wife. It allows for this show to explore something that often isn't explored and that's how people, particularly Black people, deal with loss and grief. Hopefully though, the show will allow Thompson to be what a Black man of his position often isn't allowed to be, and that's a romantic lead. In his career, it's as if Thompson went from child actor to now a dad actor and he wasn't allowed to be seen as a romantic lead who could be a sexual being. There's even a joke in the first episode that's designed to mock the idea of him hooking up with his late wife. There's a suggestion that we might get Kenan as a romantic lead in Episode 4 with Kimrie Lewis (Single Parents and Scandal) who plays Kenan's producer, Mika, but we'll see if that goes anywhere.

Rated TV-PG-DL.
Running Time: 30 mins.
Tuesday at 8:30 PM on NBC.