Black-ish: The Best New Show, Comedy

In this image released by ABS, Anthony Anderson, left, and Tracee Ellis Ross appear in a scene from “Black-ish.” (AP Photo/ABC, Kelsey McNeal)

In this image released by ABS, Anthony Anderson, left, and Tracee Ellis Ross appear in a scene from "Black-ish." The series was created by Kenya Barris, who was motivated to write the comedy about an African-American familys efforts to honor its heritage in part by the unreality of what he grew up watching on television. (AP Photo/ABC, Kelsey McNeal) — In this image released by ABS, Anthony Anderson, left, and Tracee Ellis Ross appear in a scene from “Black-ish.” (AP Photo/ABC, Kelsey McNeal)

Matt Zoller Seitz, VULTURE

(Vulture.com) — All this week, we’re presenting the Vulture TV Awards, honoring the best in television from the past year.

The nominees are:

Fresh Off the Boat
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Black-ish
Jane the Virgin
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

And the winner is…

Black-ish.

There are a lot of recent sitcoms and sketch shows that plausibly lay claim to the adjective revolutionary, including Key & Peele, Inside Amy Schumer, Jane the Virgin, Fresh Off the Boat, and Transparent. But Black-ish is by far the sneakiest, because when you’re watching it, the tone is so disarmingly relaxed that it takes a while to realize that what you’re seeing is at all unusual. The show’s narrator, advertising executive Andre “Dre” Johnson, isn’t just an educated, upper-middle-class black man with a house in the suburbs, three smart-alecky kids, and a beautiful, kooky surgeon wife named Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross); he’s the anchor for a weekly referendum on African-American life, and race relations generally, that’s very specific in its humor but presents every joke in such a brisk, confident way that it feels as though it’s been on the air forever.

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