ABC’s Rebooted Wonder Years Looks to Tell ‘a Story That Hasn’t Been Told to America’

Fans of the original Wonder Years, which aired from 1988 to 1993, will find a lot to love in ABC’s reboot, which will begin airing on Sept. 22 this fall. The shows are both set in the late 1960s. Both shows feature a narrator who reflects on his childhood throughout the duration of the series. And both follow a suburban middle-class family unit. But 33 years later, the beloved series’ reboot, one of only two freshman series on ABC's fall schedule, is looking to offer up something brand new. The series looks to offer an underrepresented perspective at life in the 1960s, following a middle-class Black family in Alabama as 12-year-old Dean Williams, played by Elisha Williams (whose adult perspective is narrated by Don Cheadle) experiences the ups, downs and firsts that come with growing up. “We wanted to really take the opportunity to show a part of Black middle class life that had not been seen before,” creator and executive producer Saladin Patterson said during the Television Critics Association’s annual summer press tour, held virtually this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “Usually when you talk about the late '60s, you’re talking about the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement and things like that, which are very valid and are part of our story as well. But the perspective of the Black middle class during that time specifically was something that stood out.” That particular period also holds a special place in the hearts of Patterson and fellow EP, Empire creator Lee Daniels, who both remember growing up in that era. “This is our story—a story that hasn’t been told to America,” Daniels said. Kim Godwin Named ABC News President As part of that, Daniels and Patterson were adamant that their cast reflect the scope of the African diaspora, and they headed into casting prepared to fight for it before finding that ABC “embraced” their insistence. “There's so much Blackness on this damn show,” Daniels said. “I think over the year we have been brainwashed by studios and networks to think that—no shade to light-skinned people out there, my light-skinned brothers and sisters out there I love—but we have not been represented. Darker people have not been represented on television as a family, as a unit. What Saladin was specific about with the casting was that they all look like him, that they all look like my relatives, that they weren’t representative of what white people thought Black people looked like.” Even as the show looks to offer up a fresh perspective, it will maintain elements from the original that made the series beloved. Among those elements might be an unexpected one: Fred Savage, who played the young Kevin in the initial series, now serves as executive producer, and he directed the pilot episode. “There are a lot of elements of this show that feel very comfortable and familiar to me and to an audience as well,” Savage said. “We’re maintaining similar tone, a similar blend of comedy and truth. There’s this same idea of a narrator looking back with the wisdom of age. But there are things that are incredibly unique about the show. And the fact that it's a brand-new family with new characters allows us to maintain some of the things we loved about the original while also telling a wholly unique and new story.” That balance of old and new is also resonant in the themes explored in the series, which range from childhood crushes and playing baseball to deeper themes like desegregation and policing. “What sticks out to me is, as much as things have changed, they stay the same,” said Dulé Williams, who stars as patriarch Bill Williams in the series. “That’s been interesting to me about exploring this world in this time period—you see the trauma, you see the hurt, you see the strength of the people during that time, and then you reflect on where we are now. You see that same strength, that same power and that same fortitude to press on forward that has always been there for people who look like me.”