Detroit native Diarra Kilpatrick is coming home in spirit with her latest project, "Diarra from Detroit," a new series slated for a March 21 premiere on BET+. Kilpatrick, the mind behind this quirky contemporary drama, credits her hometown as the breeding ground for her creativity. "From an artistic point of view, the city really fed me," she told CBS Detroit. The actress and writer, who's also the show's executive producer and star, made it known that Detroit's local stories and her experiences with her grandmother helped mold "Diarra from Detroit."
Set in the Motor City, the series follows a local schoolteacher struggling through a divorce while tracking her elusive dating app match. Kilpatrick says she drew inspiration from her days watching old-school mystery series like "Perry Mason" and "Murder, She Wrote" on the couch with her grandmother. Those shows, she explained, felt like Black shows despite the lack of Black characters, a disparity she aims to address in her own work. "I always wanted to see a Black female private investigator from that lens. From the lens of Black woman," Kilpatrick recounted in a statement obtained by the Detroit Free Press.
The show promises to serve a mix of humor and suspense, woven into the tapestry of Detroit's own rich and intricate narrative. As per the Detroit Free Press, Kilpatrick has laden the script with her personal and familial connections to the city, and despite the series being shot in New Jersey, she has tirelessly infused it with the essence of Detroit from the cast to the music and set decorations.
In the run-up to the premiere, fans eager to catch the first episode "Diarra From Detroit" will not be left hanging. The show's airing is scheduled for Saturday, March 16 at 10 p.m. ET on BET, with live streams available on various platforms including Philo and FuboTV, both of which offer free trials to new users, according to syracuse.com. The series is not just a deep dive into a personal obsession following a modern ghosting, it's a reflection of Diarra Brickland's journey as she interweaves the pursuit of a lost love and a decade's old missing person case into the backdrop of Detroit.
“At the end of the day, this is a really relatable story about a woman who was ghosted and doesn’t take it well. … Come watch this show (that’s) about a Black woman, but for everybody,” Kilpatrick cheekily pointed out in her conversation with the Detroit Free Press.
