Atlanta-filmed ‘Being Mary Jane’ hits BET as series

That may change with its first hourlong drama, “Being Mary Jane,” starring Gabrielle Union and debuting at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

When BET introduced a 90-minute version in July, social media feedback was “Scandal”-like heavy and almost universally positive. More than 6 million people viewed the July 2 film and an encore geared to the West Coast. Critics even liked it.

"#BeingMaryJane is a good look for BET. This is an upgrade they really needed," blogger Awesomely Luvvie wrote on Twitter that night.

“People were surprised that BET would take on such a gritty, risque, raw and smartly written series,” said Omari Hardwick, an actor who grew up in Decatur and plays a married man in love with the very single Mary Jane.

But even before it aired, BET executives knew they had something good going. The previous spring, the network had already shot eight more episodes at EUE Screen Gems in Atlanta.

The character Mary Jane Paul was complex and flawed in a way that challenged Union, who plays a CNN-type anchor struggling to balance work, family and love. And given the paucity of dramas fronted by black women, Union felt she had landed on a gold mine.

“I read this script and thought, ‘I can be good at this. This is in my wheelhouse,’ ” Union said in an interview at the St. Regis Hotel in Buckhead last month.

But BET decided to hold the show’s debut for six months — to build anticipation. And that anticipation is rife. On Twitter in recent days, comments such as “I really can’t wait for Being Mary Jane — no one understands” pop up every few minutes.

“It goes into our source of pride,” Union said. “We were prepared. We knew we did good work. But the series makes the pilot look bad. It’s so good! If you love the pilot, you’ll gag for the series.”

Union (who lost out to Kerry Washington for the lead on the very buzz-y ABC series “Scandal”) notes that Mary Jane may be smart, gorgeous, engaging and generous, but she is no saint. She can be dogmatic and sanctimonious at work. She can be angry and resentful toward her aimless family members she helps support. And she makes poor choices when it comes to men.

She modeled her broadcast persona after Soledad O’Brien, the former CNN anchor best known for the “Black in America” series. “She’s the barometer for black female journalists with integrity and compassion that are well respected.”

Mara Brock Akil, the creator of “Being Mary Jane,” said Union, who recently got engaged to basketball player Dwyane Wade, “embodies many layers of Mary Jane. She’s fearless in her approach to the work. She dives headfirst. She leaves everything on the screen.”

This is Akil’s first drama after helming “Girlfriends” and “The Game,” successful 30-minute sitcoms. “I’ve mixed real-life drama into these pieces,” she said. “But it’s still not enough room to express things fully. I have more to say. I needed a bigger canvas.”

Her favorite moments on the show, she said, are the times when Mary Jane is alone, pondering, cooking, cleaning. “Often in storytelling,” Akil said, “everything is so rushed. There’s not enough time to breathe. I enjoy the space of an hourlong series to tell stories and to give characters a chance not to say anything. Sometimes, that says a lot.”