Freeform orders Black-ish spin-off College-ish to series

Black-ish is officially going to college.

Freeform has given a series order to College-ish, a spin-off of ABC’s Black-ish, set to follow oldest child Zoey Johnson (Yara Shahidi) to college.

“I never thought they’d let me put Black-ish on the air let alone give me a spin-off,” Black-ish creator Kenya Barris said in a statement. “I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity to continue working with Yara and the rest of this talented young cast. To any aspiring writers struggling to make it out there, I highly advise adding an ‘–ish’ to any working title you might have. It seems to be the move.”

Joining Shahidi on the new series is Deon Cole, who recurs on Black-ish as Charlie, the hilariously strange co-worker and best friend of Zoey’s dad, Dre (Anthony Anderson). In the May 3 episode (“Liberal Arts”) of Black-ish, which served as a backdoor pilot for the new project, Charlie was revealed to be moonlighting on campus as an adjunct marketing professor.

Written by Barris and Larry Wilmore, College-ish was originally in contention at ABC before it was deemed to be a better fit for the younger Freeform audience. The 13-episode first season is set to debut in early 2018.