One of the big questions this television season was if ABC's gamble on diversity would pay off. It appears it has. ABC announced that Black-ish, a sitcom about a wealthy black family, and How to Get Away with Murder, which stars the indomitable Viola Davis as one of the toughest criminal lawyers in the land, would be getting full seasons— 22 total episodes for Black-ish, 15 (Davis's filming schedule restricts the number of episodes she can appear in) for How to Get Away.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
Both shows have done well in ratings. Black-ish’s third episode drew in 8.28 million viewers, and How to Get Away’s second episode drew in 17 million viewers when you add in the DVR viewers, HitFix reported.
The two shows are part of an ABC schedule that is more diverse than it had been in recent years. Back in July, we had reported that the success of Shonda Rhimes’s Scandal encouraged and inspired execs to invest in shows that featured more women and non-white characters (the network also has a midseason show in Fresh off the Boat, which is the first sitcom to center on an Asian-American family in 20 years). Black-ish and How to Get Away’s full seasons show that move is paying off.
