BET’s The Game officially returned for their sixth season last night and it was a bittersweet affair for critics and fans alike as two of the series’ main characters, “Melanie” and “Derwin” played by Tia Mowry-Hardict and Pooch Hall have left the series.
At the season premiere event in NYC, Wendy Raquel Robinson had a chance to speak with ABC and she opened up about Tia & Pooch’s departure and how it affected the show.
On the show’s new additions:
“It’s fresh. It’s new. It’s still the same drama/comedy…but I do like the addition,” Robinson tells ABC News Radio, referring to new cast members Lauren London and Jay Ellis. “I think it’s going to help. You know every now and then we need to get re-energized and resuscitated.”
On how they found out about Tia & Pooch’s departure:
Robinson reveals to ABC News Radio that the show’s producers “didn’t tell us anything” about the changes, but they did share that “it was going to be hard to continue on with the storyline.”
Robinson admits that “does make a lot of sense. If [Hall’s Derwin Davis] gets traded and [Mowry-Hardrict’s Melanie Davis is] off at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore — we’re set in San Diego — so it would’ve been a little convoluted.”
On Tia’s departure:
“Personally that’s my little sister so it was devastating. But now in retrospect so many other opportunities have come to her: movies, her own show and then she got a reality show. So…it’s still hard, but it’s a blessing in a disguise for her as well,” Robinson says.
On Pooch’s negative tweets about the show:
“It’s kind of like going through a bad divorce and there’s the love of your life getting married again. How do you act?…It’s a knee jerk reaction. He’ll get over it and that wound will heal,” she says.
via ABC
