Welcome Back to Hillman: Our First Collaboration Episode
For our first collaboration episode, we teamed up with Consider This for Comfort, the award-winning podcast hosted by pop culture commentator Eteng Ettah. Consider This for Comfort asks what our favorite shows mean to us. Sista Brunch goes behind the scenes with the Black women+ who make them. A Different World returns on Netflix on Thursday, September 24, and it gave us the perfect reason to bring the two together.
What the original meant
A Different World premiered in 1987, and the sequel arrives exactly 39 years to the day later. For Fanshen, the original landed just as she was starting undergrad. The show opened a window into what an HBCU could offer: in her words, "what full Blackness looks like." Eteng came to it later, first through reruns playing while getting ready for school, then start to finish on Netflix. That full watch revealed how much ground the show covered, from apartheid to HIV to class. It handled all of it while still being funny.
Why this sequel is different
Eteng has been candid on Consider This for Comfort about reboot fatigue, and Fanshen shares it. On Sista Brunch, screenwriters pitch us original stories all the time that never see the light of day. But a sequel that carries a legacy forward is not a straight remake. Felicia Pride as showrunner helped ease some of that skepticism. The new class of Hillman students brings storylines the original never explored: a Ghanaian-Nigerian student, a criminal justice major and a star athlete.
Where Black Hollywood stands
The conversation turned to the state of Black Hollywood. Fanshen named what our guests keep telling us: the support that surged in 2020 has receded, and the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report shows representation moving backward. Because projects take years to reach the screen, today's cuts will shape what we see for the next five years. The answer is to build our own infrastructure. That means supporting festivals like ABFF, BronzeLens and BlackStar, and Black-owned distributors like KweliTV.
Building Hillman in the real world
In the second half, we went behind the scenes with Jen Farris, a 15-year Atlanta-based film and TV location scout. Jen's team finds the real-world match for every location on the script page. Those choices tell you a character's era, wealth and world before a single line is spoken. As Jen put it, "locations are characters too."
The original A Different World was shot almost entirely on a soundstage, with real HBCU campuses appearing only in establishing shots. This time, production went to the Atlanta University Center. Clark Atlanta, Spelman and Morehouse all appear on screen, with their red brick, archways and century-old trees. Jen credits Debbie Allen with insisting the story be told in a real HBCU community.
It matters. Jen's college roommate at Bennett College was the first in her family to go to college, and A Different World is why she chose an HBCU. A new generation, many born after 2012, may have the same experience watching this one.
When we see us on set
Jen's path into scouting came through a call from someone who knew her from the music business. Fanshen named something we hear on Sista Brunch all the time. When you are one of the only Black people on a crew, a Black showrunner or producer who notices you can change your career. In 2026, we are still too often the only ones, which is why being seen still matters.
Watch and listen
Watch the full episode (audio only) on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qVi4XKLhJmE?si=YIFxLDyiUXwZZZ6t
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sista-brunch/id1506316350
Listen to Consider This for Comfort: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/consider-this-for-comfort/id1823537949
Revisit our June 2020 conversation with Felicia Pride: https://youtu.be/lopCHwxCFYY?si=8zT9KtTWfvS5xvgv
Follow Eteng Ettah at @etenggg and @considerthisforcomfortpod. Follow Jen Farris at @msjenfarris and @yo.didyouknow, and at jen-farris.com.
