fp Turks and Caicos

'The Player's Club' star, who says she put her career on hold to serve as the island's First Lady, is now attempting to reclaim her acting career by launching a reality TV series about the very life she says cost her that career. The series plans to follow LisaRaye on her journey as she "reclaims her life" by becoming autobiographical on TV.

To be filmed in Los Angeles and the Turks and Caicos, the new reality series will follow the star of TV One's All of Us as she works to fully re-establish her acting career, while balancing a far-flung and complex personal life. TVOne says the show will focus on Ms. McCoy acting career, as well as helping her 19-year-old daughter Kai deal with the challenges of transitioning to adulthood; keeping her incarcerated sister, a rapper called Da Brat, in line; taking care of her ailing mother, and of course, "hold down" love life of her own.

The show will air on TVOne, which is now available in approximately 47 million homes across the United States. The eight episode series is slated to premiere the spring of 2010. This very series came under sharp criticism from the former Premier's own party, in a lettre signed by party officials demanding that he not allow his office to become hostage to such a spectacle. Although it may seem unfair to attack before having seen the facts, it is unwise to forget that the purpose of such shows is spectacle and idiosyncrasy played out on national television; without the grace of discretion or the charm of good taste.

The danger of course is that the TCI, holding itself as a "high end" luxury resort destination, hardly needs an "urban" interpretation of the life which is to be had here; since that life and its style is meant to trade on discretion. Moreover, it is hardly good advertising, marketing or branding to have such a series, potentially together with a series of trials (stemming from the Commission of Inquiry), resulting in a riot of negative marketing of Turks and Caicos; undermining a brand that cost this nations millions of dollars to cultivate.

Apparently, Ms. McCoy - unperturbed by the above - has a grievance concerning her own judgment of the value of being First Lady of these islands: In an interview earlier this year, the 41-year-old actress told Essence, "I feel like I gave up too much of myself and compromised a bit too much." On Friday January 20th 2009, the fp wrote the following concerning, then Miss Lisa Raye McCoy-Misick: "If not before, for whatever reasons, now Mrs. McCoy-Misick must also show a regard for her role and continuing attachment to the name of Turks and Caicos. It will not do in this respect to say she was not advised of the responsibility. Many have accused her of not being worthy of the title, and failing to comport herself, as would a first lady. Others still have argued that she shows herself mis-educated on the significance of the role. And that she assumes that her celebrity is superior to that role. The fp cannot say what Mrs. McCoy-Misick thinks; save that if that were her position, she would be mistaken.

It is perhaps an unfair comparison to both women, but one can hardly hear Michelle Obama at all asking the American people to show gratitude for her giving up behaviour that was inconsistent with being a first lady. Be reminded however, that as a tendency and in general Americans see any change to their routine of behaviour or income producing exercises as “compromise”, as Mrs. McCoy Misick seems to imply in her Essence article. This therefore draws a tension between what we perceive as a first lady’s duty and what she perceives as her right to do as she pleases; a right no first lady in our ancient tradition recognises or observes".

It is perhaps safe to say, no TV show can be stranger than this reality.