A Different World gets a reboot, and Scientology's influence on Beck's career

Oh, there's so much.

I'm so excited we're talking about this.

So the original premise was it was a spinoff of The Cosby Show following Denise Huxtable, played by Lisa Bonet, one of the most formative TV characters of my life, I just gotta say.

So she left home to go to the historically Black Hillman College, which is a fictional HBCU.

But Lisa Bonet left the series after getting pregnant with Zoë Kravitz.

The lore is crazy.

So they actually wanted to write her pregnancy into the show, but Bill Cosby, who was an executive producer at the time, he was not having it.

He didn't want the show to follow a pregnant college student.

He also thought it would ruin Denise's good girl image, which is just a weird take.

Um, and also, there were rumors of just Lisa Bonet and Bill Cosby just didn't get along.

Mm.

So after she left, Debbie Allen came in as the showrunner, and she focused on Whitley and Dwayne, played by Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison, and then the show really found its footing.

And it became such a big deal because it was this Black college coming-of-age show in the '80s and '90s, the first of its kind, and it tackled all these big topics like race and class and sexual assault and domestic violence.

And it had groundbreaking conversations about HIV/AIDS, and it became a showcase for Black Hollywood.

It introduced now icons like Halle Berry and Jada Pinkett Smith.

And yeah, it was just funny and great and good and m- m- made my life.

[laughs]

It was really, like it made a difference.

Enrollment in HBCUs went up.

Yeah.

A Different World is just iconic and classic, and if you haven't watched the original, you should.

It was great and good, and it changed your life.

That's, I think that's a good-

[laughs]

... good thing for us to carry forward into this conversation because it's an really important show.