AV Club
Feb 22, 2020
By: Danette Chavez

Both CBS’s Criminal Minds and ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat bid their final farewells this week. It seems obvious to us which show will be missed more than the other: Although Mr. Scratch will live on in our minds, Fresh Off The Boat broke up the monotony of network family sitcoms, inviting audiences into the home of a Taiwanese American family that proved increasingly relatable over the last six years.

Created by Nahnatchka Khan, who served as showrunner until 2019, Fresh Off The Boat was loosely based on the autobiography of Eddie Huang, retracing the celebrity chef’s adolescence. Hudson Yang portrayed the young Eddie, who loved basketball and hip-hop in equal measure. Randall Park, who recently wooed Ali Wong in Always Be My Maybe, co-starred as Eddie’s dad Louis, the owner of Cattleman’s Ranch restaurant. And series breakout Constance Wu starred as Jessica, the highly competent and competitive matriarch of the Huang family. The series garnered recognition from the Critics Choice Awards, the Television Critics Association, and the NAACP Image Awards throughout its six-season run.

Audiences will miss gathering at the Huangs’ table, which was relocated along with the show to Friday nights for the penultimate season. While Fresh Off The Boat was no ratings juggernaut, there’s no denying the impact that the show has had, not just in raising the profiles of Park and Wu but also in providing some much needed momentum to greater representation on TV. That will always be part of the show’s legacy, as Master Of None co-creator Alan Yang and Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu attest.

When The A.V. Club spoke with Yang about his latest series, the Apple TV+ anthology Little America, at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, we also discussed the mark left by the Huang family.    [FULL  STORY]