Dear White People strayed too far from its original concept in its last two seasons

Refinery29

"What had started as an in-depth portrayal of Blackness in a majority white space quickly took a turn into something bizarre and much harder to connect with," says Ineye Komonibo. "In the third season of Dear White People, the show transformed into a sleuth mystery of sorts, its main characters doing a deep dive into the truly confusing lore of a secret society hidden in plain sight on campus. And in the recently released series finale, it further devolves into many fans’ worst nightmare: a musical. These narrative turns were also accompanied by dialogue and storylines that didn’t quite hit the way that they were supposed to, a hint that the writer’s room had spent a lot of time on Twitter reading hot takes and hashtags. The simplest diagnosis of exactly what went wrong with Dear White People as the seasons went on might be that over time, it strayed too far from the original concept of Black students navigating the challenges of attending a school that wasn't made for them. Though a simple premise, that baseline offered up an infinite treasure trove of experiences that the show could have pulled from to keep it timely and perpetually relatable. Viewers were looking to see themselves and their experiences reflected in this show, but as the Netflix project continued, it became more difficult to relate to because of all of the extra things being pumped into the plot, presumably to make it more interesting."