We’re two episodes away from the third season finale of ABC’s hit comedy Black-ish and this time we’re going back to college. In the latest installment of the series, Zoey heads off to orientation at a southern California university and runs into a few familiar faces along the way.

The episode is titled, “Liberal Arts,” which also happens to be the current name of Yara Shahidi’s planned spin-off. Many have compared it to A Different World–because it was an offshoot of the classic Cosby sitcom–but Black-ish creator Kenya Barris says it’s so much more.

“It’s an homage to that because that show meant a lot to me,” he said on NPR’s Code Switch.  “Being in college right now, kids have a lot to deal with–so many new things that we never had to. Even just being on the campus of USC where we film it, I was noticing the bathrooms were marked all gender. So I think it’s just a whole different world. I thought there was something interesting in showing that. It’s about issues that millennials, and Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids are going through.”

In tonight’s episode–which is basically a pilot for Shahidi’s show–Zoey arrives on campus and tries to get the lay of the land. As she strolls through campus with a friend, the pair assess all of the available student groups, but Zoey isn’t feeling it…until she meets a cute co-ed, played by Burning Sands star Trevor Jackson.

While the show isn’t set in stone just yet, from the looks of the clip below, we definitely hope it happens.


Black-ish airs Wednesday nights at 9:30 on ABC.