A while back, we learned that MTV had plans to reboot their classic 90s cartoon Daria, about a disaffected teen making her way through high school, for a modern audience. My major problem with the reboot concept was that it was called Daria & Jodie and was centered on Daria, the protagonist of the original series and Jodie, who had only been prominently featured in a handful of episodes and was mostly a foil to Daria and was not, as the new series described her “one of her closest friends.”
Today it seems like those plans have changed because Deadline reported that Tracee Ellis Ross is going to produce and star in the show, now being called Jodie, a spin-off of the original series focused on Jodie Landon as she enters the workforce after college.
Created and written by Grace Nkenge Edwards (Insecure), Jodie will be centered around fan favorite and Daria’s good friend Jodie Landon (voiced by Ross), an African American character from the original series credited with helping to shape a generation of women. Jodie will follow her as she comes into her own and enters the workplace in her first post-college job in tech. Other former students of Lawndale High will also appear.
This announcement doesn’t explicitly say that this is the show originally announced as Daria and Jodie, but it’s written and created by the same person (Grace Edwards) and it’s focused around Jodie, who was a fairly minor character on the original series.
I was a big fan of Daria, so I’m glad to see it back in any way, honestly, even if I think it’s going to be weird with everyone having new voices. The other good news is that Deadline said Jodie is “the first in a series of spinoffs based on MTV’s iconic Daria franchise.” So there’s more Daria on the horizon, hopefully written by someone who remembers Daria’s best friend is Jane Lane and not Jodie.