Peacock's Bel-Air gets flipped, turned upside down with the series' fourth showrunner
Carla Banks-Waddles will take over for T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson for season two of the dramatic Bel-Air reboot
For long-running series, switching out showrunners isn’t all that abnormal; for example, The Walking Dead has gone through four showrunners throughout its zombified eleven-season run. Yet, Bel-Air is aiming to beat that record even before the release of a second season, as another showrunner has rolled up in a bright, yellow taxi outside the Banks’ Los Angeles mansion. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peacock’s Bel-Air, the dramatic reimagining of Will Smith’s hit ‘90s series Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, has moved up co-executive producer Carla Banks-Waddles as the series’ fourth showrunner and executive producer, replacing duo T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson.
The change comes after the series has already experienced a few rounds of creative team turnover, especially with those running the show. Originally, Peacock picked up the series with Chris Collins (Sons Of Anarchy) attached at the helm, but he and his replacement Diane Houston (Empire) went on to leave the drama due to the show going in a different creative direction. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the issue lay in that Peacock was wanting a “broad-skewing network-style show” while Collins was leaning towards “an edgy, premium series.”
After Collins and Houston’s departures, Bel-Air executive producer and writer Malcolm Spelling snatched up Brady and Newson (who previously were producers on Shooter and Narcos) to serve as series showrunners. The duo navigated all eleven episodes of the show’s first season, before bowing out of the Peacock series.
Previously a producer on series such as NBC’s Good Girls and UPN’s Half & Half, Waddles’ involvement in Bel-Air includes writing the series’ seventh episode “Payback’s a B*tch.”
While the show is currently under a two-season order from Peacock, the creative change may mean a lot in terms of it finding a larger audience and higher critical success (as it currently has a ‘58' Metacritic score), giving it the green light for that sweet, sweet renewal.