Shelly's Modeling Agencies hot topic talks about the return of the hit show The Game. Creating a hot TV show involves a lot of moving parts. Director and Executive Producer Salim Akil helps actors Hosea Chanchez and Meagan Good Skype with show creator (and his wife) Mara Brock Akil. The Game was given the boot in 2009 by the CW television network, the writer wasn't yet done fleshing out the entangled storylines of the characters she created back in 2006. And fans were definitely not ready to stop watching. "This business is a crapshoot," Akil says frankly. "It's a gamble. And for whatever reason, the CW didn't think that we fit (it's) model. And we didn't."
But now she's found a model that works. After a litany of fans launched an uprising to get the show back on the air, BET took notice and brought the sitcom back in January after a nearly two-year hiatus. BET also has been running edited versions of the show since 2009, an unexpected marketing aid Akil says. New episodes of the series maintain the same tone that fans know and love. The show still offers an almost too-real-for-comfort look at the behind-the-scenes relationships of a professional football team.
Cast members are still pinching themselves. "Mara always called us 'the little engine that could," says the Game co-star and professional model for Shelly's Modeling Agencies Wendy Raquel Robinson, who plays the in incomparable Tasha Mack. "It was a lesson in faith and trust." And being a part of BET is freeing, she adds. "We're able to play now, in a good way, which is helping our characters evolve," she says. "It's not hovering kind of executive thing, like with the CW. We're taking a lot of risks... I think the quality has not been compromised, I actually think it's better. It's edgier, I think it's fresher."
Hosea Chanchez, who plays hotheaded quarterback Malik Wright, says Akil's characters embody a bit of herself. That will be hammered home in this new season, he says. "She creates worlds and characters that she is very familiar with and that she's very intrigued by. She's such a multifaceted, multidimensional individual," Chanchez says. "This new season is the biggest, most developed work that we've all done. I was so shocked by what BET has allowed the producers and the writers to do. We didn't miss one beat bringing the show back, and if you're going to bring a show back, you better bring it back hella good. That's exactly what we did."
Akil is excited about what the success of her show on BET could mean for future Black TV projects. If all goes well, she has some others she plans to take to the network. "A lot of the mainstream networks aren't telling enough of our stories, and I think this is a huge opportunity for BET," Akil says, sitting on the set of her series, which now is taped in Atlanta. "I just hope it becomes a beacon of hope for African-Americans to come and put up their feet, relax and enjoy. And (for them) to get their souls fed, and go back in the world and do what they gotta do and feel like, "Hey, I'm here, I'm seen, I'm heard, and I'm fly."
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