Posthumous work can be tricky to assess, but Clean Slate, executive produced by the late great television icon Norman Lear, radiates his signature warmth and intelligence. The creator of American TV comedies that came to define the 70s, including All in the Family, Good Times and The Jeffersons, had in the past decade returned to our living rooms. He executive produced the feisty feminist remake of his sitcom One Day at a Time, which brought the legendary Rita Moreno back to our screens, and had signed on to Clean Slate at the time of his death. Lear’s signatures of complicated family relationships, progressive politics and endless empathy is all over his final project, which is a testimony to his ability to make TV that was fun, funny and radical.
Unlike many of his previous shows, Clean Slate is a multicamera sitcom without a laugh track; it follows Desiree Slate (Orange Is the New Black’s break-out star Laverne Cox), a glamorous art gallerist who finds herself single, broke and forced to leave New York to return to her childhood home in Alabama. She moves in with her cantankerous father Harry Slate (standup legend George Wallace), who is surprised to learn that his estranged son has transitioned, although, as she points out: “I’ve always been Desiree.”
