Fox has two shows this season featuring all-black casts. There's "Brothers" and there's "The Cleveland Show," which airs this Sunday night at 8:30, part of Fox's animation domination block.
Because it's a spin-off of the hit show "The Family Guy," it's a safe bet that "The Cleveland Show" will be the one that lasts. And safe is the problem with the show.
I'll just say it: It's basically "The Family Guy" in black face.
The show begins with Cleveland (voiced by Mike Henry, nope I'm not bothered that he's white) at a crossroads. He's divorced from his wife Loretta, and she's got the house and given him Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson) and she wants them out yesterday. Cleveland wants to change his life, so he decides they should move to California so Cleveland can pursue his dream of being a minor league baseball scout. (Stewie's parting farewell: "Goodbye chocolate people.")
On the way, he stops off at his Virginia hometown and runs into Donna (Sanaa Lathan, I'm glad you're working but you deserve better than this) his high school crush who is now divorced and raising two difficult kids, a teenage girl Roberta (she has a white boyfriend named Federline Jones) and a 5-year-old named Rollo. Stuff happens and then Donna and Cleveland get married. A new family is born.
Cleveland is a nicer guy than Family Guy's Peter and probably a better parent. But there's the same cutaways to unrelated stuff (on the pilot we get to see an R. Kelly gag), the same flashbacks, there's the same absurbity, (like the fact that Cleveland's neighbor is a bear; his bear wife is voiced by Arianna Huffington.)
Basically, if you like "The Family Guy" you'll probably like this. Unless, with "American Dad" also on the schedule, you've reached your Seth McFarlane tipping point.
Assistant Features Editor Adrienne Johnson Martin would like to have her life turned into an animated cartoon. 
