‘Bel-Air’ showrunner on what’s next for the Banks family (and for Black TV) after the series finale

Bel-Air, the dramatic reimagining of the beloved ‘90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, aired its series finale this week.

Inspired by a 2019 trailer written and directed by Morgan Cooper, Bel-Air premiered on Peacock in 2022 with Cooper as showrunner and Fresh Prince star Will Smith among the executive producers. It ran for four seasons, making it the streamer’s longest-running original series, and brought several of the original sitcom’s cast members back in new guest roles (and one old one).

Carla Banks-Waddles (Good Girls, That’s So Raven) joined Bel-Air as showrunner in its second season and won an NAACP Image Award for her writing on the show.

Keep up with LAist.

If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.

Subscribe

She spoke with LAist host Julia Paskin about how the series paid homage to its source material and put the real Los Angeles more front and center than the original series was able to.

On doing The Fresh Prince justice and not letting it be a constraint

“We feel the responsibility and the weight of what this IP is for people,” Banks-Waddles says. “Because it’s this beloved show. And it was beloved to all of us [writers] too. So I think we feel the weight. We wanna honor the original, we don't want to disrespect it, but we also kind of have to pick it up and put it aside and go, ‘OK, but how do we make Bel-Air stand on its own?'”

Jabari Banks and Olly Sholotan in a scene from the final season of "Bel-Air."

(

Anne Marie Fox/PEACOCK

/

Episodic

)

For fans of the original series, Bel-Air included plenty of nods to beloved storylines and moments (like Carlton and Will dancing to “Apache (Jump On It)” by The Sugarhill Gang, which happens in the final season).

But even for people not familiar with The Fresh Prince, Banks-Waddles says, “You can still come to [Bel-Air] and go, ‘I love this.’ So I think it's just finding that balance of feeling the responsibility but then filing it away and saying, ‘But this is its own show.’ [...] And just having fun with it and telling the stories that we wanna tell, that feel important, that feel fun, that feel meaningful.”

But figuring out how to wrap up the series also brought new pressures.

“So many times you stay with a show 'til the end, and then you're let down by a finale,” Banks-Waddles says, “and I just did feel the responsibility of fans who were skeptics in the beginning who did tune in and understand, ‘Oh, this is different. I'm gonna watch it and support it, and I like it.’ And they stayed on the ride with us. So I want this to feel like a thank-you to everybody who stuck with us.”

Ultimately, Banks-Waddles says she wanted the audience to feel like the finale was less of an ending and more of a sendoff for the characters, hence the last episode’s title, “The Next Act.”

“Even though it feels like a goodbye, I do want people to think even though I'm not gonna be with the Banks family in their next act and what they're going off to, that you're gonna feel joy and hope for all of them.”

Bringing back original cast members

Over the course of four seasons, Bel-Air brought back several original cast members of The Fresh Prince and cast them in new roles — including Tatyana Ali who played younger sister Ashley Banks, Joseph Marcell who played the Banks family butler Geoffrey, and this season, Will’s original Aunt Viv, actress Janet Hubert.

Actress Janet Hubert in a scene from the final season of "Bel-Air."

(

Anne Marie Fox/PEACOCK

/

Episodic

)

Hubert left the original show amid conflict with Will Smith and was recast, but in recent years, she publicly reconciled with Smith.

The fact that Hubert was on board with taking on a role in the final season, Banks-Waddles says, “felt poetic.”

The most important part, she says, was always to make the cameos feel organic and purposeful, “not  forced or too gimmicky.”

Los Angeles plays itself

Unlike The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which filmed entirely on soundstages in front of a studio audience, Bel-Air had more freedom to film in different L.A. locations.

Set in Bel-Air (though the Banks home in the series actually was in the city of Bradbury), the show also spends a lot of time in South L.A.

Banks-Waddles says the initial thinking was that because Will is from West Philadelphia, he would feel an affinity for South L.A., where his friend Jazz lives. And it also opened up more storytelling possibilities: “Like the gentrification of South L.A. ... the [SoFi] stadium coming and just how neighborhoods are changing and how it's impacting that community.”

The state of Black TV

Asked about studios and streamers backsliding on investments in content created by and about people of color, Banks-Waddles says she has felt a marked difference today compared to four or five years ago, when it felt like more doors were opening.

Now, she says, “I know there is a feeling that those doors are narrowing and that our time has maybe passed. But I also think a part of it is just the industry and that we see it ebb and flow. We see sometimes we're hot, sometimes we're not. But I like to believe that good storytelling is here to stay, and that includes our stories.”