‘A Different World’ Rebuilt for a New Generation
The beloved college gets a fresh look, authentic HBCU roots, and familiar faces.
School is back in session at Hillman College, but nearly 40 years after A Different World first opened its doors, the campus looks a little different.
Netflix’s sequel series brings the beloved HBCU back to the small screen, this time following Deborah Wayne (Maleah Joi Moon), the youngest daughter of Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy) and Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison), as she begins her freshman year. But reviving A Different World in 2026 meant doing more than introducing a new generation of students. It meant figuring out what Hillman itself should look and feel like almost four decades later.
For showrunner Felicia Pride, that meant preserving the places longtime fans remember, while giving viewers a much bigger and more authentic look at HBCU life than the original NBC sitcom could provide.
“One of the things is that we moved from multi-cam to single-cam, which means that we can see Hillman in a way that we weren’t able to see in the original series because it was taped on stages,” Pride says.
This time around, Hillman has some real HBCU pedigree behind it. Much of the series was filmed around the Atlanta University Center, which not only gave Hillman a genuine campus vibe, but also helped give the fictional learning institution its student body.
“We had the pleasure to tape a large part of the series at the AUC, which is Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark. So we have the texture of an HBCU campus in ways that we hadn’t previously,” explains Pride. “We also have the authenticity because 59 percent of our background performers are HBCU students or alumni. So that authenticity is there.”
Even the familiar corners of Hillman have evolved. Rather than simply recreating The Pit diner exactly as viewers remember it, Pride worked with the production designer to imagine how the campus hangout might have changed over the decades.
“We took the bones of the Pit and the familiarity of the Pit, but then updated it,” Pride says. “‘What does the Pit look like 40 years later?’ was the question that we asked, and our production designer, Bruton Jones, did such a beautiful job of evolving the Pit while also making it feel like the place we remember, to bring in and preserve that spirit for long-time fans.”
That same old-meets-new approach extends to the students filling Hillman’s hallowed halls. Deborah may come with one of the most famous family names in Hillman history, but Pride deliberately surrounded her with characters whose backgrounds are very different from her own.
“There was absolutely a conscious effort to make sure we had an ensemble that reflects students today,” Pride says. “The great thing about HBCUs is how diverse they are in terms of the types of Black people that attend. So it was important for us to reflect that.”
“We have Deborah Wayne, who’s the daughter of Whitley and Dwayne, and she’s an artist trying to figure herself out, and she grew up with some privilege,” explained Pride. “Then we have Rashida (Alijah Kai), who is a first-gen college student and all about her books and her business. Then we have Shaquille (Cornell Young IV), who is the son of Ron Johnson (Darryl M. Bell); he’s an athlete from Detroit. We have Amir (Jordan Aaron Hall), who is out and queer, comfortable in his skin, a psych major from Harlem, and a little rough around the edges. We have Kojo (Chibuikem Uche), who is Ghanaian-Nigerian by way of London; he’s an entrepreneur and into fashion. And then we have Hazel (Kennedi Reece), who is from a small town, Elgin, Illinois, and is about church and was raised in the church.”
That diversity also gives the sequel a way to tackle the same larger questions that helped define the original series without simply repeating them with younger characters.
Of course, some things at Hillman remain reassuringly familiar. Whitley and Dwayne aren’t the only alumni connected to this new class, and familiar faces including Ron, Freddie Brooks (Cree Summer), Col. Bradford Taylor (Glynn Turman), and Jaleesa Vinson-Taylor (Dawnn Lewis) return.
Even Hillman’s soundtrack bridges the two generations. The iconic “A Different World” theme song, performed by Phoebe Snow in Season 1, by the great Aretha Franklin for Seasons 2 through 5, and by Boyz II Men in Season 6, gets a refresh for the sequel, with Brandy putting her own spin on the tune.
It may be a different Hillman for a different generation, but it still feels like home.
A Different World, Series Premiere, September 24, Netflix
A Different World (2026)Alijah KaiCornell Young IVJasmine GuyKadeem HardisonMaleah Joi Moon
