'Queen Sugar': Oprah, Ava DuVernay bring a new family drama to OWN
I'm not sure any woman has ever awakened more beautifully than Nova Bordelon (Rutina Wesley, True Blood) does in the sexy, languid opening scene of OWN's new drama Queen Sugar, as she emerges from a lover's bed to the strains of Meshell Ndegeocello's "Faithful."
I'm not sure any woman has ever awakened more beautifully than Nova Bordelon (Rutina Wesley, True Blood) does in the sexy, languid opening scene of OWN's new drama Queen Sugar, as she emerges from a lover's bed to the strains of Meshell Ndegeocello's "Faithful."
Directed by series creator Ava DuVernay (Selma), who made a point of having female directors for all 13 of the first season's episodes, the scene manages to elevate the TV cliché of introducing female characters without most of their clothes.
It also introduces a character I wasn't expecting to meet.
Turns out DuVernay, with the blessing of fellow executive producer Oprah Winfrey, has reimagined Natalie Baszile's novel - which didn't include Wesley's character - for Queen Sugar.
In the TV version, Nova and siblings Charley (Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Unforgettable) and Ralph Angel (Kofi Siriboe) are brought together when they inherit a not-very-prosperous sugarcane farm in Louisiana.
This being Winfrey's network, the show makes its two-night premiere on Tuesday and Wednesday before settling in at 10 p.m. Wednesdays next week, where one of the summer's best new shows, Greenleaf, just ended its first season.
"I loved this book and immediately saw it as a series for OWN," Winfrey said in a prepared statement when the project was announced last year. "The story's themes of reinventing your life, parenting alone, family connections and conflicts, and building new relationships are what I believe will connect our viewers to this show."
Just maybe not enough.
DuVernay's rewrite suggests someone thought Baszile's story of a widowed art teacher moving from California to Louisiana to run the sugarcane farm left to her by her father needed more glitz.
Charley's still from L.A., but now she's the wife and manager of an NBA star (Timon Kyle Durrett). The book's preteen daughter Micah has become a teenage son, also named Micah (Nicholas L. Ashe).
Nova's a journalist and activist who may practice a bit of voodoo on the side, and Ralph Angel, who's raising a young son, Blue (Ethan Hutchison), is a parolee who sees the farm as a chance to get on his feet at last.
The result is a more conventional TV drama than Baszile's story, which focused on Charley and on the complicated, backbreaking work of running an undercapitalized sugarcane farm.
This Queen Sugar, though, leaves DuVernay room to explore topics that may interest her more than planting and harvesting, including the line between journalism and gossip, as scandal mars Charley's perfect life and an editor tries to enlist Nova's help in covering it.
Ralph Angel's experience with the criminal justice system also presents an opportunity for DuVernay, whose documentary The 13th, about incarceration in the U.S., premieres Oct. 7 on Netflix.
So far, though, I see only opportunities.
Because, although Queen Sugar looks beautiful and introduces some great characters - including the Bordelon siblings' Aunt Violet (Tina Lifford, Scandal) and her much younger boyfriend, Hollywood (Omar J. Dorsey, Ray Donovan) - the three episodes made available to critics are scene-setters.
The seeds for good drama (or at least quality soap) are there.
We'll just have to see what grows.
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