The first trailer for Dear White People—Netflix’s adaptation of Justin Simien’s 2014 Sundance hit—poses that this series has the ”voice of reason” America needs right now thanks to its heroine Samantha White (Logan Browning). Samantha, a student at the fictional Winchester University, calls out campus racism like a horrific blackface party on her titular radio show.
Reviewing the film, The A.V. Club wrote, that the “the nifty trick of Dear White People is that it manages to keep up its rapid-fire barrage of social criticism—ceaselessly lobbing cherry bombs at the notion that race is no longer an issue in America—while also allowing its ensemble to deepen into complicated, conflicted people.” Speaking on a panel with other Netflix creators at a press event Wednesday, Simien said that he wanted to go “much further than the movie went,” later noting, “I knew that ultimately these characters belonged on TV.” Each episode, Simien explained, is told from a different person’s point of view. Dear White People premieres April 28.