UPN was in its death throes when One on One entered its fifth and final season; like several shows on the network at that time, it received an ill-fated and head-scratching shakeup. The previous season ended with Breanna deciding to stay in Baltimore for college. This episode features Breanna and Arnaz moving into a flat in California so Breanna can start college and Arnaz can bum around for his music career. Wait, what? Spirit and Duane are effectively written out by absence and cease to exist from this point forward (they don't show up on the spin off Cuts either). It's also made clear that Flex isn't going to stick around for much longer either since his life is back in Baltimore. That's not a good sign if any of these characters were your favorites. All these characters' story lines, jokes, and development have gone out the window.
To fill in for the old cast are their new flatmates, a parade of paper-thin characters defined by their single trait: Cash wants to film celebrities, Lisa is man-crazy, etc. Ray J is D-Mack, somehow transplanting his awful character from Moesha onto this show; the only difference is that everybody knows he's a wannabe player and bad boy, whereas it was played mostly straight in Moesha. The only new character with any kind of potential is Kel Mitchell as Manny, a former child star turned landlord. Kel puts in 150% and his character has more to work with, unfortunately, he doesn't show up much after this episode.
From this episode on, One on One feels like an aimless, inferior show. It's lost its identity and the new characters could basically be from any generic sitcom. Even the title no longer makes sense - the sitcom about a formerly estranged father and daughter building a relationship has seemingly vanished. It's been years but I still wonder what a proper season 5 would have been like if they stayed in Baltimore. Maybe it would have lived long enough for at least one season on the CW.
To fill in for the old cast are their new flatmates, a parade of paper-thin characters defined by their single trait: Cash wants to film celebrities, Lisa is man-crazy, etc. Ray J is D-Mack, somehow transplanting his awful character from Moesha onto this show; the only difference is that everybody knows he's a wannabe player and bad boy, whereas it was played mostly straight in Moesha. The only new character with any kind of potential is Kel Mitchell as Manny, a former child star turned landlord. Kel puts in 150% and his character has more to work with, unfortunately, he doesn't show up much after this episode.
From this episode on, One on One feels like an aimless, inferior show. It's lost its identity and the new characters could basically be from any generic sitcom. Even the title no longer makes sense - the sitcom about a formerly estranged father and daughter building a relationship has seemingly vanished. It's been years but I still wonder what a proper season 5 would have been like if they stayed in Baltimore. Maybe it would have lived long enough for at least one season on the CW.