TV Jots

ABC Family Takes on the ‘Hood

Tonight at 7pm EST, the family-friendly basic-cable station ABC Family will premiere a new original series that I’ve been looking forward to ever since I first spied the promos last year: the diverse and undoubtedly dramatic Lincoln Heights. The hour-long weekly series focuses on the black American Sutton family, headed by career police officer Eddie (Russell Hornsby). When the California father and husband decides to move his family to the inner city neighborhood where he himself grew up and now patrols, the titular Lincoln Heights, his wife (Nicki Micheaux) and three teenage children (Rhyon Brown, Erica Hubbard, and Mishon Ratliff) experience no less than a searing culture shock, even if they are surrounded by “their own.”

The relocation results from a special departmental incentive program for cops who accept the challenge of living in dangerous neighborhoods in return for greater access to financial empowerment, such as home ownership. Will Eddie manage to succeed at this goal while protecting his family from the more insidious elements of their new community? Or will the stress of such a life ultimately force him to relinquish his hopes of achieving the elusive American Dream through the program? I don’t know, but I personally can’t wait to find out.