A Different World Review: Netflix’s Sitcom Revival Can’t Balance the Old School and the New School

The older I get, the stronger my reverence for teen shows that actually cater to teens… and the shorter my patience for those that drop the ball. We’re a long way from the golden era of Disney Channel originals and (shudders) Dan Schneider classics, shows that seemed to know teens just as well as we knew ourselves. Now the divide between “zoomer” and “boomer” is wider than ever, and stories that depict young adulthood organically have never felt rarer. 

Forty years on, something like A Different World is the gold standard. Both blindsidingly funny and shrewd about sensitive topics like apartheid, HIV/AIDS, and sexual harassment, it remains a cornerstone for generations of TV watchers. Its central setting, Hillman College, might have been fictional, but it became a very real proving ground for audiences navigating their respective coming-of-age. It famously inspired a spike of enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities across the nation — and it didn’t achieve that kind of influence with impersonal, boilerplate writing. Its specificity as well as its bravery have kept it at the center of the zeitgeist for decades — but that also makes it a remarkably tough act to follow, even (and especially) for its sequel series of the same name, produced by Netflix and poised to fill a void that countless shows have tried and failed to address. 

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There’s never a bad time to introduce a new college-set story to the market: As teen shows go, this trope is frustratingly rare, but it’s just as hard to get right, especially with the original Different World setting the bar so high. Debbie Allen, the legendary director and producer who helped transform A Different World into the timely, gutsy show we know and love, has been trying to reboot the series for years, and for good reason. We need a show like that on the air now more than ever, a show equal parts fearless and funny: a forum for Black audiences of all ages to explore, debate, and find their respective voices. Passingly charming as it is, though, Netflix’s revival is trying too hard to relive the glory days, rather than reshape this world for the next generation.

5.5

A Different World

Like

• The OG Hillman cast remain in great form
• Feels like a Homecoming decades in the making

Dislike

• Head-scratching humor keeps the tone stilted
• Can’t balance its old-school storylines with its new class

Netflix’s A Different World is a tale told in two halves: the first a “Where Are They Now?” reunion with the original cast, and the second a passing of the torch to Hillman’s new freshman class. Each is fulfilling only in fits and starts, and A Different World feels messiest in its attempts to reconcile the old school with the new. Aside from Cree Summer‘s delightful return as the free-spirited Freddie Brooks — now the socially conscious professor everyone wants to study under — the return of other Hillman alums can’t shake its afterthought status. Hoity-toity Southern belle Whitley (Jasmine Guy) and her volatile romance with Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) were the beating heart of the original series. Here they mostly hover, occasionally alluding to their marital strife while their youngest child, Deborah (Maleah Joi Moon), fights to find her place at Hillman.

Deborah (emphasis on the “borah”) is fulfilling the role that Lisa Bonet’s Denise Huxtable filled in the OG Different World, that of the aimless, artsy legacy kid with few goals but a plethora of romantic entanglements. At best, she bears the brunt of the revival’s most stilted attempts at comic relief; at worst, she’s a lightning rod for its equally awkward explorations of current events. The series tackles the imbalances of our new world with the same fiery ambition as its predecessor — its first season touches on ICE raids, a campus bomb threat, the importance of STD testing, dwindling resources for HBCUs, and so much more — but, unfortunately, none of the finesse. Too often does A Different World swerve into “after-school special” territory, stirring radicalization among its student body with all the dynamism of a social justice slideshow. 

The issue of budget is arguably the revival’s most successful plot point: It’s the only hot topic A Different World dedicates ample time to exploring, making for a much more organic conflict that unspools across the season. When Hillman’s president (an all-too-brief Jenifer Lewis) is ousted for mismanaging funds, Dwayne is forced to step up in the interim. His efforts to save Hillman from the brink offer plenty of opportunities to bring fan favorites, like Jada Pinkett Smith‘s outspoken Lena James, back into the fold. As for how this newfound responsibility affects Dwayne himself, though, A Different World stumbles. Dwayne is a main character relegated to the sidelines: There are episodes that forget about him and Whitley entirely, leaving crucial character moments to unfold off screen and serve as pertinent exposition later.

With only 10 episodes at the show’s disposal, time management is a persistent issue, and it impacts its returning cast and their modern counterparts in equal measure. Fortunately, the budget crisis does affect Hillman’s new class in dynamic ways. Deborah’s roommate, the Compton-raised Rashida (Alijah Kai, far and away the revival’s MVP), has to take up a side hustle at The Pit when her scholarships are slashed in half. Amir (Jordan Aaron Hall), Hillman’s first queer protagonist, finds he’s without a dorm room when he first turns up on campus. Helping her new friends is one of a handful of half-baked crusades Deborah busies herself with in her first semester. Otherwise, she’s trying to figure out her major, struggling to keep her grades up (if they dip below a 3.0, she can kiss her place at Hillman goodbye), and grating against her status as Hillman’s ultimate nepo baby. Of course, on the hierarchy of TV stakes, all this comes second to the aforementioned romantic drama — and that goes for every character we cross paths with here.

A Different World is essentially saved by that beloved staple of young adult comedy: soapy, messy relationships. The series spams us with love triangles wherever humanly possible, papering over the cracks in its lumpy foundation. Deborah’s caught between the suave Shaquille (Cornell Young IV) — her first flame, Hillman’s star quarterback, and the son of the OG show’s resident casanova, Ron Johnson (Darryl M. Bell) — and her tutor, Ellington (Vincent Jamal Hooper), another legacy student whose lineage is revealed with the breathless panache of an MCU Easter egg. Rashida finds insta-love with a British exchange student, Kojo (Chibuikem Uche), before her own inexperience gives her cold feet and drives her to the arms of another. Hillman’s resident Church Girl, the hilarious and endearing Hazel (Kennedi Reece), finds herself competing against Amir for the attention of an upperclassman. A Different World applies that same drama to its alums, too. It’s effective, if shockingly unimaginative, but at least it keeps this story moving swiftly forward. Would any of this be happening IRL? Probably not with such frequency, but the repetitive romances aren’t really the problem here. They’re more a symptom of the core flaw that makes this different world feel so alien to the one we came from.

Where the original Different World felt realized and raw, its revival can’t shake this feeling of fantasy — which might have worked in its favor if it didn’t also feel so forced. It has more in common with Bridgerton or Dear White People: Like the latter, it settles for clunky explorations of current events and dated jokes that no 18-year-old would be caught dead saying. Its efforts to court the older crowd — with everything from impromptu sing-alongs of Fantasia songs to string quartet covers of aughts-era rap — only further prove how hard it is to get Gen Z right. Audiences raised by A Different World might find it easy to step back into this universe, but in trying to appeal to four generations of Hillman alums, the new series finds itself in the dreaded limbo that so many college-set shows have stumbled into. 

Premieres: Thursday, Sept. 24 on Netflix
Who’s in it: Maleah Joi Moon, Alijah Kai, Cornell Young IV, Chibuikem Uche, Jordan Aaron Hall, Kennedi Reece, Vincent Jamal Hooper, Cree Summer, Kadeem Hardison, Jasmine Guy
Who’s behind it: Felicia Pride (showrunner); Debbie Allen, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Reggie Rock Bythewood (executive producers)
For fans of: The original A Different World, Dear White People, 30 Rock’s “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme
How many episodes we watched: 10 of 10