OWN tonight (June 22) returns its drama series David Makes Man for a new season in which the series’ teenage prodigy returns as a 30-year old man, played by Kwame Patterson (Snowfall).

The series’ sophomore season -- executive produced by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Michael B. Jordan and showrunner Dee Harris-Lawrence -- picks up with the now adult David as a rising businessman facing an opportunity that will change him and his community forever. The mounting pressure forces David to choose between the instincts that helped him survive or finding a new way to live, according to OWN. 

During its first season run, David Makes Man ranked second in its time period across all cable with African-American women and reached over 4.1 million unique viewers on OWN, according to Nielsen.  

Academy Award winner McCraney (Moonlight) spoke to me about David’s transition from teenager to adult in the series' sophomore season as well as the success of the show’s first season. An edited version of the interview appears below.

Picture This: Was it difficult for you to make the main character’s transition from a teen in season one to an adult in season two?

Tarell Alvin McCraney: When we first approached [Oprah] Winfrey about the show, we knew that we always wanted to talk about the ways in which acute childhood trauma shows up in our adult life. So the first season was laying the groundwork for showing how David, with all of his resiliency, survival skills, defense mechanisms, and his amazing imagination matures to a place where he can handle the adult situations that he's in, even though he's a 13-year-old kid. In season two, we'd always planned to show how those defense mechanisms and survival skills were hindering him from clearly living in the present. It shows an older David who has reached maturation and a place of respect from where he quote-unquote comes from, but is he actually living in his present? Is he having relationships that are bountiful and nourishing? It’s an exciting place to be because we knew where we were going -- whether or not we were going to get here was the question. You always have to wait and hope that the show will be picked up for another season, but we’re really excited to bring this to the home viewers and to the world.

Picture This: Following up on that, were you surprised by the success of season one, both from an audience perspective and from the critical acclaim that the show received? 

TAM: I'm always surprised … you never can count those things. As an artist, there's always a chance that someone is thinking about their taxes at the same time that they're looking at your show and they could absolutely miss all of the things that you're hoping to engage them in. I think for me, it has been exciting to see people engaged in a deep way. For example, there's a college course that's been created by multiple institutions -- one at Morehouse College, one at UConn Health Disparities Institute -- that look at the show on a scholastic level, and then there’s all of these groups on Facebook who have conversations about the work we’re doing. That's always really exciting and I certainly didn't expect it.

Picture This: We see David’s maturation in season two, but what else should viewers expect to see in the upcoming season? 

TAM: When we were in season one, we focused on the narrow path of a 15 year-old kid who was trying to get into a school. What came with that were certainly some side roads, but when we get into adulthood, there's a lot more chaos. It offers a 360 degree panorama of David’s life as an adult and how he's trying to handle that with the same amazing tools of a 15 year old in the 30 year old body. And I think that you can expect some of that to be really funny, sexy, and heartbreaking, but all of it with intention and love. 

Several new and returning non-fiction shows dominate the lineup of shows debuting during the last full week of June.

Paramount Plus on June 24 debuts a new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars after VH1 aired the reality competition show for its first five seasons, while Prime Video on June 25 premieres the Mary J Blige’s My Life musical documentary revolving around the R&B singer’s classic “My Life” album.   

On the documentary front, HBO on June 21 will debut a new episode of its true-crime series I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, chronicling events surrounding the infamous Golden State Killer.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting the week of June 21 to June 26 on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

June 22-- David Makes Man (returning series) -- OWN

June 22 -- Motherland: Fort Salem (returning series) -- Freeform

June 23 -- Too Hot To Handle (returning series) -- Netflix

June 24 -- Fear of a Black Quarterback (documentary) -- Vice

June 24 -- The Good Fight (returning series) -- Paramount Plus

June 24 -- Jiva! (drama) -- Netflix

June 25 -- Bosch (returning series) -- Prime Video

June 25 -- Central Park (returning series) -- Apple TV Plus

June 25 -- False Positive (horror) -- Hulu

June 25 -- Sex/Life (drama) -- Netflix

June 25 -- Wolfgang (documentary) -- Disney Plus

June 25 -- the Mysterious Benedict Society (drama) -- Disney Plus

June 27 -- A Discovery of Witches (returning series) -- AMC

Dee Harris-Lawrence proved she was a Wonder Woman when she took on the Amazonian task of running two shows at the same time — OWN’s David Makes Man and CBS’s All Rise. She agreed to do both before the pandemic hit, and it wasn’t long before she found herself spending hours on Zoom with the casts and crews of both shows. 

“I did say to people after that, ‘If I ever say I’m going to run two shows at the same time, pull me off somewhere and slap me across the face,” Harris-Lawrence joked.

Joking aside, for Tarell Alvin McCraney, David Makes Man’s writer and creator, Harris-Lawrence was the reason his show about a 14-year-old boy fighting to make his way out of the projects was able to go forward. 

“We needed her,” said McCraney, who wrote the play on which the Oscar-winning movie Moonlight was based. “She has a strong voice as a writer. She has a fascinating ability with systems and structure and I had never created a show for TV before.

Wonder Women Los Angeles: Shining Bright in the Hollywood Spotlight

“But what finally made us understand that this was the person who was going to guide our ship was that she had grown up in a very similar way to the show’s main character,” he added. “She just brought so much together in a way we desperately needed.”

Harris-Lawrence, with her writer’s ear for character, brought that same talent to All Rise, which starred Simone Missick as Los Angeles County Judge Lola Carmichael.

“Dee was such a breath of fresh air coming into the first season of All Rise,” Missick said. “She immediately had a goal and a vision for my character that was innovative and specific to her being a Black woman in a position of power. That attention to detail was what I think allowed the audience to continue to fall in love with these people on a human level.” (CBS canceled All Rise in May.)

Harris-Lawrence has been working in television for several years, starting as Quincy Jones’s assistant and then working for Suzanne de Passe before briefly going out on her own to try her hand at writing screenplays. She was quickly called back to work as a writer’s assistant on Sister, Sister, but she kept writing on her own. After producer Josh Goldstein happened to read a spec script she left out on her desk, he gave her a shot on teen series Sweet Valley High that helped get her going.

But first, she took a detour to get her MBA. After the first year, she scored a job as a writer on Fox’s New York Undercover but, again juggling several things at once, finished the program.

“Having my MBA definitely helped in managing people,” Harris-Lawrence said. “I’m very systems-oriented, but I also have always been obsessed with television, books and movies. I kind of toggle between my left brain and my right.”

“She’s just great at what she does,” said Susan Rovner, chairman, entertainment content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, who hired her for both shows when she was president of Warner Bros. Television. “You know she’s good because of the distinct quality of the product she puts out — the consistency of how good those episodes are, the fact that they are on budget, on time and creatively excellent.”

Sought-After Skill Set

Having all of those skills in one person makes Harris-Lawrence a rare commodity in Hollywood, and with the current content explosion, ever more in demand.

Next up, she’s heading into production on Josephine, a limited series she wrote about chanteuse Josephine Baker starring Ruth Negga. Harris-Lawrence is executive producing the series along with LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s Springhill Productions, with Millicent Shelton directing. All three women — Harris-Lawrence, Negga and Shelton — are executive producing the series, which is in development at ABC Signature.

Said Harris-Lawrence: “It’s a great blessing and a really nice position to be in, especially as we’re all coming out of this pandemic. It’s exciting to be able to really dig into all these other stories I want to tell.”  

OWN has released a first-look trailer for the second season of its original drama series David Makes Man, premiering June 22. 

The series -- which in its first season followed David, a 14-year old prodigy torn between the potential of higher education and the reality of life on the streets -- in season two finds David in his 30s as a rising businessman facing an opportunity that  forces him to choose between the instincts that helped him survive or finding a new way to truly live, according to OWN. 

The series stars Kwame Patterson, Arlen Escarpeta, Akili McDowell, Alana Arenas, Travis Coles and Cayden K. Williams. 

As the election approaches, all eyes shift to Florida to see what sort of weirdness the state comes up with as the nation decides on its president. But anyone who watches TV these days has seen plenty of weirdness out of Florida already. The state leads the nation in bizarre people and peculiar events, making it a logical place to set an offbeat series. 

Like Claws. The TNT dramedy depicts women working in a nail salon in Manatee County, Florida, that is a front for sketchy mobsters looking to launder cash. The salon’s clients, including a woman who sells deer meat out of her trunk, are unique to say the least. 

Claws creator Eliot Laurence said he always had Florida in mind for the setting. “There’s insanity everywhere, but there’s something about the Floridian version,”
he said. Claws is set in Florida due to “my love of weirdness and my attraction to the state of Florida being the weirdest place,”
he added. 

Is that a fair assessment of the Sunshine State? Most definitely, said Craig Pittman, author of Oh, Florida! How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country. “Oh my gosh, we’re the weirdest state by far,” said Pittman, who hosts the podcast Welcome to Florida. “More happens in Florida day by day, and the weird stuff just happens to be weirder.”

Wide Range of Sunny Settings 

Shows that have trafficked in Florida’s weirdness include Claws, Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida, Pop TV’s Florida Girls and MTV’s unscripted Floribama Shore and Siesta Key. Shows have long been set in Florida, including, of course, Miami Vice, along with FX’s Nip/Tuck, the Ryan Murphy drama about plastic surgeons in Miami; USA Network’s Burn Notice, about a cast-off CIA agent solving crimes in Miami; A&E drama The Glades, about a detective in the Everglades; Netflix’s Bloodline, about a family in the Florida Keys with dark secrets; HBO’s Ballers, about a former NFL player managing current players; and Showtime’s Dexter, about a Miami forensics tech who kills the murderers who law enforcement could not catch. (Showtime just last week announced it is rebooting Dexter.) 

The state offers a wide variety of settings, including beaches, cities and rural areas. “What sets Florida apart from other states and countries is that within our state, you can find just about any location type,” said John Lux, executive director of trade association Film Florida. “With warm temperatures year round, countless number of diverse neighborhoods and locations, Florida has long been considered the perfect location for ‘Anywhere USA.’ ”

Alas, the state does not offer an incentive program for producers to shoot in Florida. Lux said that ended in 2016. That means several shows based in Florida shoot elsewhere. Claws, for one, films in New Orleans, as did On Becoming a God in Central Florida. “Florida is just cost-prohibitive,” said Laurence, who said the production does set up in Florida to shoot for short spells each season. “We get a lot of great stuff in a week or two.”

Some Florida residents believe viewers don’t see their true state when that happens. Eric Deggans, National Public Radio’s TV critic and a St. Petersburg resident, said there’s a unique tone to the water and the sand that may not come through on television. “Viewers are shown much less-impressive places and told, that’s Florida,” he said. “You rarely see TV shows and films that capture what is subtle and what is compelling about Florida.”

One and Done 

A couple of well-received Florida rookies have, like a luckless Florida man, met an untimely demise. Pop TV’s Florida Girls, a Laura Chinn comedy about four women in a trailer park trying to better their lives, was well-reviewed in season one, and Pop signed up for season two, only to cancel the show months later. On Becoming a God, about a woman, played by Kirsten Dunst, who works at a water park in an “Orlando-adjacent” locale and is making her way up a pyramid scheme, was set to shoot season two. Showtime said earlier this month that reuniting the cast and crew amidst the pandemic had become “untenable” and the show would not continue. 

The allure of Florida weirdness is hardly limited to scripted shows. MTV’s Floribama Shore, about pals Jeremiah, Codi, Kortni, Aimee and others partying, hooking up and fighting on the Gulf Coast, has had three seasons. So has MTV’s Siesta Key, about young adults figuring out friendships, relationships and careers in the islands off Sarasota. 

“Our show is about a group of friends who come together every year to leave the real world behind for a few weeks, get a house near the beach, and
have some fun,” said Jackie French, executive producer of Floribama Shore, which has had two seasons in Panama City Beach and one in St. Pete Beach. “And for as long as I can remember, Florida has been about exactly that — escapism.”

Why So Weird?

What makes Florida so peculiar? Residents have an array of suggestions. One is the extraordinary population growth, which saw Florida climb into third place, ahead of New York and behind California and Texas. The state population was just under 16 million in 2000, according to the Florida Legislature Office of Economic and Demographic Research. Today, it’s 21.5 million. 

“It’s people right up against each other who have nothing to do with each other,” Laurence said. 

Pittman said Florida comes in at No. 49 in the U.S. in terms of mental health spending. He called Florida “a frontier state” with a cowboy mentality. Add to the mix tons of tourists drawn to Walt Disney World and the beaches who are largely left alone by the police, and it may come as no surprise that people end up chasing each other with chainsaws. “Let the tourists do what they want and look the other way,” Pittman said of the ethos. “Everybody’s happy.”

The state is home to its fair share of nudists and Wiccans and mobsters and drug dealers. “A lot about Florida is deeply weird and unconventional,” Deggans said. “A lot of people are drawn to the state for exactly that reason, to let their freak flag fly.”

In 2013, The New Yorker cited a new genre of crime fiction, which it called “Florida
glare,” with authors such as Carl Hiaasen spinning stories about the local depravity. “South Florida wackos — all heavily armed, all loquacious, all barely aware of one another’s existence — blunder through petty crime, discover themselves engaged in actual murder, and then move in unconscious unison toward the black comedy of a violent climax,” wrote Adam Gopnik.

And who can forget the Florida Man meme, which saw users google Florida Man and their birthday to uncover yet
another oddball crime. (This reporter’s birthday offered up “Florida man charged with battery for giving girlfriend ‘Wet Willy.’ ”)

Pittman said it all fits the state profile. “Every day, you open a paper here, and it’s, ‘Wow, a guy punched a swan,’ ” he said. 

More Sober Shows 

Not every show set in Florida celebrates the state’s weirdness. OWN’s David Makes Man is a heartfelt drama about a Black teen living in an undesirable project in Homestead, Florida, outside of Miami, and making his way each day to an elite magnet school. Season two starts production in Orlando next week. 

Line producer Wayne Morris said Florida provides “a unique tableau that really is a character in the show,” including the glittering city beyond David’s project, the public bus he takes to school and the overwhelming humidity that makes the show’s many sticky situations even stickier. “The location is uniquely Florida, and you can’t recreate that shooting somewhere else.”

Astronaut drama The Right Stuff, a series based on the Tom Wolfe book of the same name, premiered on Disney Plus Oct. 9. Every exterior shot in the first season was shot in Florida, from Cape Canaveral to Cocoa Beach. “Florida plays a huge role in The Right Stuff — you could even say it’s a character,” executive producer Jennifer Davisson said. “It was very important to us to get the authenticity and spirit of Florida as a location in this particular time in history.”

The producers of David Makes Man and The Right Stuff didn’t give much thought to shooting in a state with more attractive incentives. “It was really important to the creative team that we were as authentic as possible,” Davisson said. “We were telling the story of a specific place and a specific movement in time, so we were determined to shoot in as many real locations as we could.” 

Some producers said there might be more demand for Florida’s rich scenery amidst these stuck-at-home times. Daniel Blau Rogge, executive producer of Siesta Key, mentioned the “stunning visual aesthetic” offered up on the show. “The beautiful scenery is exactly what viewers need right now, as we live through unprecedented times that limit our ability to travel,” he said. 

Other States’ Starring Roles

Florida is hardly the only location that emerges as a character in a show that’s set there. NBC has Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med, which return Nov. 11 and offer a peek at life for first responders in the Windy City. ABC premieres Big Sky Nov. 17, with Montana playing a key role in that crime drama. “The visuals of this show and the vistas of the show and C.J. Box’s novels [Big Sky is adapted from a Box novel] are so landscape-dependent that they are going to be breathtaking to watch,” said cast member John Carroll Lynch. 

But few, if any, states offer the sun, fun and zany drama of Florida. The unexpected cancellation of Florida Girls and On Becoming a God on the cusp of their sophomore seasons was disheartening for fans of Florida-set shows, but there will surely be others. 

Would Claws creator Laurence set another show in the Sunshine State? Absolutely. 

“I’m endlessly fascinated by the place,” he said. “I have great affection for Florida.” 

HBO Max will stream the first season of cable network OWN’s original series David Makes Man beginning July 16, the service reported Monday.

The Warner Horizon Scripted Television-produced series, created by Tarell Alvin McCraney and executive produced by McCraney and Dee Harris-Lawrence (Shots Fired) follows a 14-year-old prodigy who must choose between the streets that raised him or the higher education that may offer him a way out, said HBO Max.

OWN has renewed the series for a second season.

The series stars Akili McDowell, Alana Arenas,, Isaiah Johnson, Ade Chike Torbert, Travis Coles and Phylicia Rashad.

OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network recently renewed drama series David Makes Man for its second season. The series, created by Moonlight writer and Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, follows the exploits of a teenage African-American prodigy looking for a way out of his poor neighborhood while attending a magnet school for gifted students.

David Makes Man showrunner Dee Harris-Lawrence (Shots Fired, Chicago P.D.) spoke with Multichannel News senior content producer, programming R. Thomas Umstead about the social impact of the series, as well as the burgeoning opportunities for producers in today’s multiplatform television environment.

What has surprised you the most about the reaction to David Makes Man? One of the most positively surprising things has been the number of young African-American men that have come up to us regarding the show. It’s one thing to say that the show was great; it's another thing when they say, ‘thank you — finally someone is telling our story,’ because there has never been a show like this about a young African-American boy and what they go through on a day-to-day basis.

What initially drew you to the project? After I met with Tarell for the job of showrunner we had this vibe between us, and I told him that after I read the script that I was the female version of this character of David. I was a daydreamer, and when I started writing, my daydreams finally quieted down because I was writing things down. So I could relate to David in that way in terms of being bused [to school] and living in different neighborhoods; it spoke to me in a major way.

How much input did OWN have in developing the storylines and episodes? It’s a different type of show for OWN because it centers around a 13-year-old African-American boy, but OWN was fantastic because we asked a lot of questions and let them know ahead of time that there would be language and situations. They told us that we had a lot of creative freedom — they did not hover over us or hinder the process. They provided us with the opportunity to tell the story the way we wanted to, which was awesome.

As a showrunner/writer, is this the best time to be in the television business? I would definitely say yes. I even told a group of students that when I first started, we only had the broadcast networks; today, you can create your own series on your phone, post it and people will be able to see it. So it's a great time to be able to not have any hindrances or anything blocking you. As long as you have a good story to tell, this is a great time to tell it.

Do you have any concerns that there may eventually be a ceiling to the number of shows created by and starring people of color and women? I don’t have any concerns only because of the fact that we have so many channels and so much content available today. Also, it’s a different world today because of social media, as well as because of the mindset of the young people globally that are coming up today. They are all unapologetic as to who they are, and everybody feels like they do have a say. It gets me excited to be able to help as many young people as possible to tell their stories.

BONUS FIVE

What’s on your DVR?Watchmen, Project Runway, Black-ish, This Is Us, David Makes Man, Euphoria, Killing Eve
Favorite show of all time? Don’t have just one — The Wire, The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Homicide: Life on the Street
Favorite podcast?Serial
What books are on your night table?Becoming by Michelle Obama; Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
What's your top bucket list travel destination? South Africa, Greece, northern Norway

OWN has renewed its drama series David Makes Man for a second season, the network announced Thursday.

The series, executive produced by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Michael B. Jordan, Dee Harris-Lawrence, Mike Kelley, Melissa Loy and Oprah Winfrey, centers on the life decisions of a 14-year-old prodigy from the projects. The series stars Akili McDowell and Phylicia Rashad.

During its first season run, David Makes Man ranked second in its time period across all cable with African-American women and reached over 4.1 million unique viewers on OWN, the network said.

“Tarell McCraney has brought us a gift with this series and masterfully added a beautiful new hue to our palette of dramatic storytelling on OWN,” network president Tina Perry said in a statement. “Viewers and television critics alike have embraced David Makes Man and connected to its powerful message. We are honored to partner with the incredible producers and cast as well as our friends at Warner Horizon Scripted Television on a second season.”

Related: Tina Perry Makes OWN's Ambitions Clear 

AMC’s anthology horror series The Terror: Infamy and OWN’s drama series David Makes Man tops the list of scripted series debuting during the week of Aug. 12 to Aug. 18.

The Terror: Infamy, debuting Aug. 12, will focus on a series of bizarre deaths that haunt a Japanese-American community, and a young man's journey to understand and combat the entity responsible, according to the network.

RELATED: ‘Terror:Infamy’s’ George Takei Discusses the Horror of Japanese Interment Camps (Video)

OWN’s Aug. 14 premiere of David Makes Man -- produced by Alivn McCraney (Moonlight) follows a 14-year old African-American male who focuses on education as an escape from a turbulent home life, according to the network.

On the reality front, Paramount on Aug. 18 will premiere a documentary on the life of actor Patrick Swayze dubbed I Am Patrick Swayze.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services:

Aug. 12 -- Lodge 49 (returning series) -- AMC

Aug. 12 -- Our Boys (drama) -- HBO

Aug. 13 -- Alternate Endings: Six New Ways to Die In America (documentary) -- HBO

Aug. 13 -- Black Ink Crew: Compton (reality series) -- VH1

Aug. 13 -- Danny’s House (talk/comedy show) -- Viceland

Aug. 16 -- Mindhunter (returning series) -- Netflix

Aug. 16 -- Sextuplets (comedy) -- Netflix

Aug. 18 -- The Righteous Gemstones (comedy) -- HBO

OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network Friday unveiled the first teaser trailer for its new drama series, David Makes Man at the Sundance Film Festival.

The series, from Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) and Warner Horizon Scripted Television, centers on a 14-year-old prodigy from the projects who is haunted by the death of his closest friend and relied on by his hardworking mother to find a way out of poverty. He must choose between the streets that raised him or the higher education that may offer him a way out, according to OWN.

McCraney serves as executive producer of the series alongside Dee Harris-Lawrence (Shots Fired Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.) Mike Kelley and Melissa Loy (Revenge), Michael B. Jordan (Creed) and Oprah Winfrey.