OWN's Love Is__ is revolutionary in the way it gives a black TV couple the When Harry Met Sally treatment

Salon.com

"To the best of my recollection there has never been a TV series fronted by a predominantly black cast that makes romance — one romance in particular — its primary focus," says Melanie McFarland of the new OWN series inspired by the real-life romance of creators Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil. "To clarify, I’m talking about romance in all of its intoxication, pain, giddiness and lunacy, as the center of two lives. Not as a catalyst for soap opera conflict, or an element of a character portrait.  Not as a secondary occurrence to the action that happens where they work or a side story to what they do. Nope, simple garden variety, crazy stupid love, the kind that knocks a person’s senses out of their head and lasts. That’s the heart of OWN drama’s Love Is ___, debuting Tuesday at 10 p.m. And if the idea of a show that’s about messy love between two regular people makes you to react with some version of 'ugh,' this show is not for you." ALSO: There's so much to love about this series that it's easy to forgive the cheesy dialogue.