Other than maybe Leslie Knope (who doesn’t exist), Oprah Winfrey might be the best person in the entire world to have as your friend. She’s not one of those friends we all have (and possibly are) who never contacts you except for the annual “Happy Birthday, bro!” message on Facebook, she’s a true friend. She’ll hide the keys to a new car under your seat, she’ll take you to all of the fancy Oscar parties, and she’ll even let you make a TV show on her network. Have any of your friends ever done that for you? Almost certainly not.
Anyway, Oprah’s friend in this case is Selma director Ava DuVernay, and she’s writing, directing, and executive producing an original series for Oprah’s OWN network based on Natalie Baszile’s novel Queen Sugar. This comes from Variety, which says the show will be about “a spirited woman” who takes her teenage daughter away from her “upscale L.A. lifestyle” and moves to an 800-acre sugar cane farm in Louisiana. If they threw in a bit of Dateline and some interviews with celebrities, that basically sounds like it would be the perfect OWN show. Variety notes that this will be DuVernay’s first TV show, and also Oprah’s first acting work on her network. Luckily, she does have a fair bit of television experience, so Oprah can probably handle this. Production on Queen Sugar is set to begin later this year.