Netflix is teaming up with Mexican-American actor Mario Lopez to create a new family sitcom. The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia is a 16-episode series starring newcomer Paulina Chavez as the title character, a young robotics engineer who gets the opportunity to work with NASA. The 15-year-old genius has to move in with her Uncle Victor in order to take the job, but Uncle Victor is a former pro football player who spends his days loafing around when he isn’t coaching high school football. Cuban-American actor and singer Jencarlos Canela will be playing the role of Victor.
The premise sounds somewhat similar to Gina Rodriguez’s upcoming Diary of a Female President series for Disney. It’s also very telling that in promoting this series, Netflix made a point of emphasizing several of the multicamera family sitcoms – though they made no mention of One Day at a Time. A guilty conscience, perhaps?
It also worth mentioning that Seth Kurland and David Kendall were announced as showrunner and writer, respectively, so hopefully those will be rounded out with Latino writers at some point. Regardless, The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia sounds cute and continues the trend of trying to get more girls into STEM careers.
There is currently no release date for The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia.