Boris Kodjoe And MyBrownBaby, Sitting In a Tree…

Oh, alright so I won’t be K-I-S-S-I-N-G that gorgeous hunk of a man Boris Kodjoe any time soon. BUT come 8 p.m. tonight, I will be front and center when his new show, Undercovers, makes its big debut on NBC. I mean, anyone with eyes can see why I and a bunch of my girlfriends will be tuning in. But my lust… er… excitement for this show is bigger than that; Undercovers is a slick, sexy hour’s worth of show about Steven and Samantha Bloom, a hot couple who run a catering business by day and carry out international spy capers by night and the lead characters are black.

They’re not playing the rear.

They’re not the side-kicks.

They’re not the super wise, all-knowing bosses who dutifully show white characters how to do the right thing.

Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are THE STARS and the show is ABOUT THEIR LIVES and they’re doing exciting things that have NOTHING to do with their color. And anyone who watches five seconds of American television knows how rare this is, as discussed so poignantly in this Associated Press story about Undercovers’ “colorful mission”:

It’s a persistent rarity in TV to have black leads outside of a “Grey’s Anatomy”-style ensemble, and “Undercovers” is rarer still because it’s not an African-American sitcom or a black-oriented drama fraught with social issues or family pathos.

This time around, two stunning, accomplished and happily wed black characters just get to have fun…