Deception: Did NBC Decide It Needed a Black Female Lead like ABC?

With Kerry Washington starring as the lead of Scandal being the first time in decades that a black female is the lead of a show, I am more than happy to have other black women join the ranks. However, I cannot be excited when it becomes the "anything you can do I can do better" competition between networks and that is the vibe I got when NBC announced its show Deception starring Meagan Good.

The concept of the show sounded and still sounds interesting. The story of "who done it" always peaks one's interest. But, Good's character, Joanna, is a tale as old as time. She's the daughter of a rich, white family's old housekeeper and was the good-girl best friend to the troubled, drug abusing, beautiful daughter back when they were teens. Oh, and of course she was sleeping with good-looking son at that time! Remember it's a competition between ABC and NBC, therefore NBC had to through in an interracial relationship at some point in the timeline (take that Olivia and Fitz!).

Overall, so far the show has been fairly predictable. I'm sure Shonda and ABC are not at all concerned (heck the shows aren't even on the same day!). I am also taking issue with the overarching Magical Negress (I am going to require credit for that term) aspect of bother Scandal and Deception. The only potential pass for Scandal is what I consider to be the almost "colorblind" writing with which Olivia's character is written (outside of her Sally and Thomas comment, which was one for the TV-writing history books). Let's see where Deception takes us even though I am not convinced the path will lead too far or be too difficult to uncover.