Black stars shine in new shows for 2012-2013 TV season

theGRIO REPORT - Here are some of the upcoming TV shows featuring black actors to look out for...

May 16, 2012

This week, nine major television networks including NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox presented their programming plans for the 2012-13 TV season to advertisers. Several black actors will be taking on roles in new shows. Here are some of the upcoming series featuring black stars to look out for.

Anthony Anderson will be heading NBC’s new show Guys With Kids, which is a half-hour sitcom executive produced by Late Night host Jimmy Fallon. The show is about three thirty-something men who must deal with being fathers despite having not grown up yet themselves. Anderson stars as a stay-at-home dad and his wife is played by Cosby Show alum Tempestt Bledsoe.

WATCH A PREVIEW OF Guys With Kids HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=IeY-nDqyQAg]

Vanessa Williams will be back on television starring in ABC’s supernatural drama 666 Park Avenue. The series follows a couple who learns that the Manhattan building complex that they just moved into, including its upscale tenants, might be possessed by a mysterious demonic force. Williams will take on the role of the “cold and sophisticated wife” of the building owner.

WATCH A PREVIEW OF 666 Park Avenue HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=x91yps9mu0I]

Meagan Good and Laz Alonso are set to star in NBC’s crime drama Infamous. The show centers around a female detective played by Good who returns, under cover, to the wealthy and troubled Lawson family she grew up in — as the maid’s daughter — to solve the murder of the notorious heiress Vivian Lawson, who was once her closest friend. Alonso will star as detective Will Sacovitch, who recruit’s Good’s character to take on the Lawson case.

WATCH A CLIP FROM Infamous HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=c6gLFt07VgM]

NeNe Leakes has been able to parlay her reality show success into a bona fide acting gig on the NBC’s comedy The New Normal. The show is created and produced by Ryan Murphy, who also created Glee, and centers around a gay couple trying to start a family. NeNe stars as the sassy, no-nonsense character Rocky, who is assistant to one of the gay guys.

WATCH A CLIP FROM The New Normal HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=g1gLj1VnY0s]

Phylicia Rashad, who is best known as Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show, will be taking on the role of Dr. Vanessa Young in NBC’s new show Do No Harm. The plot revolves around Dr. Jason Cole, played by Steven Pasquale, who is dealing with an alternative personality named Ian Price. For years he’s been able to keep Ian in check but the drugs he developed to do so no longer seem to be working. Rashad’s character serves as the chief of surgery and boss to the show’s main character.

WATCH A CLIP FROM Do No Harm HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZRGIgBZ7VEk]

Veteran actor Giancarlo Eposito (Do the Right Thing, Breaking Bad) stars in NBC’s sci-fi thriller Revolution. The show is executive produced by J.J Abrams and revolves around a concept that imagines a world devastated by the total loss of electricity. Planes fall from the sky, hospitals shut down, and communication is impossible. Life returns to what it once was long before the industrial revolution: families living in quiet neighborhoods, and when the sun goes down lanterns and candles are lit. Eposito stars as Lt. Neville, a hard-as-steel military man who may not always be what he seems.

WATCH A PREVIEW OF Revolution HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=JwfCRAtkYEI]

Last Resort is ABC’s upcoming drama series created by Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield). The show stars Andre Braugher (Men of a Certain Age, Homicide) and centers around the renegade crew of a nuclear submarine, the USS Colorado SSBN 753, that defies an order to launch nuclear missiles towards Pakistan, resulting in the crew becoming rogue enemies of their own country. They set up camp on the fictional island of Sainte Marina, and declare themselves a sovereign nation with nuclear capability. At the same time, the crew must find a way to prove their innocence, find out who set them up, and hopefully return home. Braugher stars as Capt. Marcus Chaplin, the leader of the crew.

WATCH A PREVIEW OF Last Resort HERE
[youtubevid http://youtube.com/watch?v=lDSttA64KGU]

Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter at @WitherspoonC