Sometimes there are shows that are just pleasant to watch despite lots and lots of flaws. A new series on Prime Video, which takes place at a ranch that’s somehow in the middle of Baltimore, is one of those shows.
BEYOND BLACK BEAUTY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We push in on a massive house, and we see a dad reading the book Black Beauty to his daughter.
The Gist: A number of years later, that girl, Jolie Dumont (Kaya Coleman) is now a teenager and and a champion equestrian, looking to go to the Olympics. We see her in a tournament in her hometown of Liège, Belgium; her mother Janelle (Sagine Sémajuste) is there to watch her, but her father, Cedric (Gilles Marini), is not. While Janelle texts him about him not being there, we see him leaving his palatial mansion with luggage.
A few days later, Jolie is with her best friend, Norah Verhoeven (Eben Yehemdi), when she sees her beloved horse Clementine being carted away, having been sold off by Janelle. The next thing Jolie knows, she and her mother are in a cab in Baltimore; for reasons that she won’t tell Jolie, Janelle felt that the two of them had to leave Belgium and go back to the Chambers Family Ranch, which Janelle’s family has owned for over 100 years and where she grew up. Janelle’s sister, Yvonne Parrish (Lisa Berry), runs the ranch now and was so excited to have her sister back in the fold, she bought an unruly black horse for her to train and ride.
Of course, Jolie is unhappy about this, and right as she’s reintroduced to her cousins Ronnie (Gina James) and Khalil Jr. (Justice James), she calls the place “ghetto.” Khalil, whose nickname is “Lil’ Man,” seems to take it in stride, but his older sister Ronnie rightfully gets ticked off at her “bougie” cousin. It’s not long before Jolie uses the ranch’s credit card to book a flight back to Belgium, which of course Ronnie — who manages the books at the ranch — finds out about.
As much as Jolie hates it there, though, she connects with the unruly black horse that her aunt bought. In fact, she seems to be the only one who can get the mare to be calm; she eventually names the horse “Beauty,” after her favorite book. When Beauty breaks out of her coral and runs into a Baltimore neighborhood, Jolie is the only one who is able to get the horse under control. It’s to the point where Yvonne wants to rehome the mare, but Jolie is convinced she can train her.
Jolie keeps trying to text her dad, but he only responds with a recorded video message; she enlists Norah to help her get to the bottom of what’s going on, but her mother finally tells her the truth when Ronnie blurts it out during a welcome party thrown for Jolie and Janelle.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Beyond Black Beauty carries on the tradition of the novel Black Beauty and all of the iterations that have been on movies and television. Other than that, though, the show has the feel of series like Virgin River and Sullivan’s Crossing.
Our Take: There are parts of Beyond Black Beauty that are a bit, well, hard to take. The first item is how the show’s producers take pains to show just how close the Chambers Family Ranch is to downtown Baltimore, to the point where people regularly ride horses through the neighboring urban landscape. Baltimore has its suburban areas, for sure, but it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief to think that there’s a whole ranch so close to the city that people regularly ride horseback within the city limits.
The second part that’s a bit hard to take is Kaya Coleman’s sometimes-wooden lead performance as Jolie. It’s not always like that; it feels that when Jolie is supposed to be angry, Coleman delivers her lines in such a stiff manner, you wonder if Jolie is really upset or just annoyed.
In general, though, the show is inoffensive fare that you can watch with your teens and tweens. There are family issues, like Jolie’s oldest cousin Ashton (Ashton James) not being able to hang around the ranch because he runs with gangs. There are high school issues; Jolie ends up helping Ronnie with another girl that’s been bullying her at school. There are romances; a ranch hand and classmate named Alvin (Akiel Julien) seems to take a liking to Jolie. And of course, there’s the story of a girl and her horse.
Sex and Skin: None. This is definitely a show you can watch with your tweens and teens.
Parting Shot: Jolie finally gets a call from her father, but in voice over, she says, “He’s dead to me.”
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to the horses — Kidd and Bubba — that play Beauty.
Most Pilot-y Line: Janelle is surprised when the hot crush of her youth is now dating her now-religious cousin Ester (Chantel Riley). Did she think he’d be sitting and pining after her this whole time?
Our Call: STREAM IT. Is Beyond Black Beauty going to go deep with any of the stories it tells? Probably not. But the ranch shots are pretty, and who doesn’t like to watch scenes of people riding horses?
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Beyond Black Beauty’ On Prime Video, Where A Teen Riding Champion Moves To Baltimore And Finds A Connection With An Unruly Horse appeared first on Decider.
