NEW YORK — Many college students see the diploma that awaits them as their ticket to success.
For Scottie, a perennial undergrad who’s having too much fun to be concerned with success, that diploma would be more like his eviction notice.
Scottie is the happy-go-lucky hero of “Somebodies,” a new comedy series premiering Tuesday on cable’s BET.
“Somebodies” is notable in several ways. It’s billed as the first scripted series in BET’s 28-year history.
With mostly black characters , it has a funny, fresh angle on student life that should ring true for anyone who ever faced adulthood with let’s-don’t-be-too-hasty misgivings.
This is Scottie’s brand of aversion. He’s a partygoing, churchgoing, easygoing guy whose unhurried journey of self-discovery is informed by kooky people with conflicting advice on the route he should take. They include his saucy ex-girlfriend and his four razzing housemates.
There’s a fire-and-brimstone preacher, various eccentric family members, and new acquaintances such as Epitome, the outspoken founder of a campus black pride group.
When Scottie drops by his college counselor’s office hoping to change his major again, she rips into him for never finishing anything he starts. Her warning for where this could lead escalates into a rant that smacks of an updated “Ya Got Trouble” from “The Music Man”:
“Government assistance! Welfare! Rims that cost more than the car! Thirty-three-year-old grandparents!” Scottie’s reaction? A mix of bemusement and sheepish acknowledgment that, maybe, there’s a nugget of truth in what she says.
One other thing sets “Somebodies” apart: Hadjii, the mono-monikered whiz who created it, wrote all 10 half-hours, directed several, serves as an executive producer, stars as Scottie — and did it all not in Hollywood or New York, but in cozy Athens, Ga., where he attended the University of Georgia, then, after graduation, made his home.
He also made Athens the home for “Somebodies,” which was filmed there this summer.
It’s been a project long in the works for Hadjii, 32. It began years ago with a screenwriting class, where he showed his professor, Nate Kohn, a spec script he had written for “Seinfeld.” Impressed, Kohn encouraged him to write about his own experiences as a black man and native Southerner.
A film industry veteran, Kohn became Hadjii’s mentor, then his producer. Meanwhile, Hadjii was developing his characters and story, while refining a comedic voice that has the laser incisiveness of Chris Rock and the knowing graciousness of Garrison Keillor. (The clownish stereotypes of Tyler Perry? No comparison.) “I want to be funny, but I don’t want to be a joke,” said Hadjii in a recent interview, then, enlarging on his theme, shifted into second person.
“You want to talk about things that are relevant and have an impact. You want to deal with things that are important. You want to have heart.”
