User Reviews

If you think this is a reboot of the light hearted sitcom of a disenfranchised youth, wrong. If you think this is a realistic outlook of what the original was, you got it. Will Smith and Benny Medina are doing an excellent job of retelling the story with modern society viewpoints. I'm addicted to this show.

If you grew up with the original Fresh Prince, it may be quite hard to watch this reboot without it feeling wrong and to give it an objective chance.

I watched the first episode so far and I can see why some people hate it: it has the same base characters and back story but it's different in a way that makes it almost unrecognisable and some people will definitely be disappointed not to get the old 'vibe' again.

I knew it wasn't a comedy, but that was a massive part of the charm of the original so personally I missed the likeable cheekiness of Will in this episode (maybe it comes in later).

Aunt Viv, Hilary and Ashley feel familiar if only more modern, however Carlton is different and not in a good way in my opinion. The original was a lovable square, the new one so far is an unpleasant, drug taking jackass.

Geoffrey is also very different, no witt or funny sarcasm so far.

The family as a whole looks less 'posh' and classy than before and more MTV Cribs style rich.

I will give this a chance and watch more, trying my best to not compare with the original, before I can decide if it's good or bad.

EDIT

I've had a chance to watch more episodes and shake off the link with the original Fresh Prince so I'm able to appreciate this show as a standalone one.

The cast are doing a decent job and it's got good moments.

Many people have touched on the woke stuff and yes, it's annoying because it comes across as tokenism, clumsily and heavily done rather than an organic and realistic part of a wider story.

But the thing I feel most uncomfortable about is the barely hidden racism in making the handful of white people on the show bad people: the white privileged friend of Carlton who turns out to be racist and an a**hole, Lisa's white step mum who is self centered, wanting all the attention at an event celebrating the saintly black mum and was the mistress while said mum was dying, the white cop who doesn't believe Carlton could be living in that house and keeps asking who the home owner is, Hilary's white boss who just cares about views and will exploit her, the white haute cuisine execs who don't want spicy food because they say "black people aren't their target demographics".

I'm sure there are a few white people in the US who aren't completely bad so why make it look otherwise?

So all in all I can enjoy the show for what it is but would appreciate less of the BLM agenda.

I watched the original Bel Air. This Bel Aor is totally different. Other one was like a sit-com. This one is serious look of a young, black man's life. Personally I find this one depressive but more concern with " black life matter " approach. It's questioning money, power and real life of low income black community young generation. Only similarity is that young, poor black boy goes to rich, black family house. Rest of it totally different.