YMMV / A Different World

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Dwayne a henpecked boyfriend or a borderline emotionally abusive jerk? Granted, Whitley could be very bitchy and annoying, but nearly all of the things he did to break her out of that were downright cruel—forcing her to not speak for a whole day because he's tired of her incessant yammering? The first thing she said when she could talk again should have been, "It's over." Let's not forget cheating on her the night before their engagement party and in all subsequent arguments, blaming her for it and acting like she was the one in the wrong for daring to be upset about it and breaking up with him.
  • This article makes an excellent argument for the latter scenario.
  • "Dwhitley" shippers see Kinu as jealous and clingy during her relationship with Dwayne, while "Dwinu" shippers would say she's just reacting to the fact that Whitley can't take a hint and leave them be, citing Whitley's own desperate antics (like pretending to be a couple with Ron just to make Dwayne jealous). To be fair to the latter argument, Whitley didn't start taking Dwayne's feelings for her anywhere near seriously until after he'd gotten over her nonsense and started dating Kinu, while Julian, Whitley's other love interest at the time, didn't reciprocate her affections as much as she'd hoped.
  • Were Dwayne and Whitley really that conflicted over each other that they couldn't admit their still very much alive love until the wedding was taking place? Or were they just playing "chicken" with each other's hearts the whole time to see who would break down first, with poor Byron caught in the middle?
• Anvilicious: Especially after Debbie Allen took over the show in season two.
• Bizarro Episode: The two-part episode "The Getaway" is incredibly farcical to the point that it plays like an episode Three's Company complete with wacky mix-ups involving cartoonish thugs and Dwayne and Ron dressing up as women.
• Growing the Beard: Around the time of the show's Retool.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Season 2's "No Means No" reveals that the schools star baseball player raped a girl at the school and attempted to rape Freddie. This show had Bill Cosby as executive producer, who served a prison sentence for a lengthy history of sexual assaults.^note  Before he was released on a technicality in 2021.
  • Though they claim that they didn't get together until the '90s, Darryl M. Bell (who played "Ron") met his future significant other Tempestt Bledsoe when she was 15 and he was 25 after she guest-starred as her Cosby Show character Vanessa in the episode "Risky Business". With grooming in Hollywood such a hot topic, it's a little hard to watch said episode considering Ron salivates over Vanessa and her friend even after Dwayne warns him that they look way too young.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In "Breaking Up is Hard to Do", Jaleesa creates a Jamaican voice to fool Walter into thinking she's someone else. The same voice Dawnn Lewis would end up using to play LaBarbara on Futurama.
• Hollywood Homely: Averted. The show featured men and women of varying skin tones and looks, yet all were treated as desirable and attractive. Most notably, the dark-skinned, full-figured Kim was openly adored by Freddie's white cousin Matthew and later, Ron.
• My Real Daddy: Debbie Allen was brought in as the Showrunner starting with the second season and it is universally agreed that the show Grew the Beard after she took over. This became especially apparent years later after the accusations of sexual assault and later arrest of Bill Cosby led to many attributing the true success of this series to Allen. Tellingly, while The Cosby Show got pulled from syndication and streaming, A Different World is still wildly available.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Marisa Tomei in the first season as Maggie, five years before winning an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. She's now back in the pop culture spotlight for her role opposite Tom Holland as Peter Parker's Aunt May in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Yvette Lee Bowser wrote 17 episodes and also served as a producer. Bowser is best known as creator and executive producer of Living Single.
  • Reggie Rock Blythewood wrote five episodes. Blythewood is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Shots Fired alongside his wife, Gina Prince-Blythewood, who wrote four episodes.
  • Scott Spencer Gordon wrote three episodes. Gordon is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of City Guys.
  • Orlando Jones wrote two episodes.
  • Scott Sanders also wrote two episodes. Sanders is best known for directing and co-writing the screenplay for Black Dynamite.
  • Carmen Finestra co-wrote the pilot episode. Finestra is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Home Improvement.
  • Matt Williams also co-wrote the pilot episode. Williams is best known as creator and executive producer of Roseanne and also served as co-creator and co-executive producer of Home Improvement.
  • Gary Dontzig and Steven Peterman wrote an episode. Both are best known as developers and executive producers of Suddenly Susan.
  • Anne Beatts served as a producer. Beatts is best known as creator and executive producer of Square Pegs.
  • One of the kid extras tutored by Dwayne later made her career in adult film industry under the name Aryanna Starr, per https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O8U7EaCEE8.
• Seasonal Rot: The final season, which became unbearably preachy, brought in a slew of new characters that failed to catch on and derailed the already established ones. Coupled with the loss of its parent show as a lead-in, ratings plummeted until the show was canceled.
• Strangled by the Red String: Ron declares his love for Freddie literally out of nowhere after years of them being at each other's throats, not to mention that he'd been falling in love with and pursuing Kim for the past year. While they'd shared at least one kiss, there's no further evidence that all their arguing was actually Belligerent Sexual Tension.
  • Kim herself can barely stand Ron only to like him out of the blue in one episode.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Romantic False Lead Kinu. The viewer is supposed to hate her as she's an obstacle to Dwayne and Whitley getting together, and she does in fact get nastier as time goes on. But who can blame her with her boyfriend blatantly ogling and drooling over another woman who's constantly hanging around and trying to interfere in their relationship? As bitchy as she gets, she never says or does anything to harm Whitley, she just wants her to leave them alone.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Dwayne's mother. While there's no denying that Whitley is incredibly rude to her when they first meet, having mistaken her for a housekeeper, she is just as rude in return. Whitley profusely and sincerely tries to apologize for her actions and she responds by rolling her eyes, right in her face, and she is consistently nasty to her throughout the remainder of the show's tenure, despite the fact that Whitley is conversely consistently nice to her in an effort to make amends. It's gets particularly ugly after Dwayne and Whitley marry, when she sends them a funeral wreath, and according to Dwayne, hangs up on him everytime he calls.
  • Whitley in season 4. The audience is supposed to root for Whitley when she sets out to get Dwayne because the show wants you to believe that they're "meant to be". However, proudly setting out to destroy a perfectly healthy relationship simply because she thinks she deserves Dwayne more is flat out villain behavior.

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