America showed this week that they were more than ready to meet the Huangs.
After positive reviews and a nationally-trending hashtag, Fresh Off the Boat premiered Wednesday night to strong ratings, making it the second-highest rated comedy series debut this season behind ABC’s Black-ish. Both sitcoms have made headlines since ABC’s decision to add the shows to its 2014-2015 lineup for featuring minority families as leading cast members.
“Network executives are making bold moves by green-lighting shows that portray minority families, but it's clear that the majority of Americans want to see a diverse landscape of characters on TV,” said Chris Witherspoon, theGrio’s entertainment editor. “We live in a culturally diverse society, and primetime network TV finally got that memo.”
Fresh Off the Boat’s Huang family is the first Asian-American family to be featured in a network television show in 20 years – a label that Eddie Huang, on whose memoir the show is based, called significant on Wednesday night at a New York City watch party before the pilot aired. “This means a lot to me,” Huang told a crowd of more than 1,000 people.
The two-episode premiere, which saw nearly 8 million viewers each in the key demo, put ABC in third place for the evening.