The attention span of the average television viewer is dwindling by the second, so I won’t bore you with recaps or spoilers. If you watched the series premiere of BET’s Hustle In Brooklyn, you know what happened. You know who linked up with who. You know who proposed to who and you know who crashed who’s party. I’ll skip all that and get to what you’re probably thinking.
If the series premiere of Hustle In Brooklyn is indicative of what the entire first season will be, the show is in trouble. To be fair, the show is not bad. It has a set of interesting characters ranging from Ivy Rivera to Alicia to Azia. More importantly, it has a set of colorful cast members that are truly working in the industry day to day. However, the series premiere played more to Love & Hip Hop than it did to a new series trying to make a name for itself.
The most memorable portion of the hour-long series premiere was Danielle confronting Darnell about him allegedly playing with her emotions. The series premiere did play to seeing the career progression of Baggy Large and Azia, but those storylines played the background. It would be unfair to call the series Love & Hip-Hop Junior, but the series premiere is pushing the show in that direction.
There’s a way to show the personal relationships of these industry newcomers without being a carbon copy of Love & Hip-Hop. The series can show the ups and downs of the industry. There are very few shows that do such a thing without the extra antics. More importantly, viewers that enjoy the Love & Hip-Hop format are not going to draw their attention to a show that’s trying to be Love & Hip-Hop when Love & Hip-Hop is already bringing in big names like Ray J, Joe Budden, and Omarion.
Baggy Large has decent music. There’s a way to look more into that. Azia has a decent sound. There’s a way to look more into that. Going forward, it would be great to see Hustle In Brooklyn be more about the hustle and less about the extracurricular activities.
