Get ready for a history-making Monday night when 3 AANHPI shows premiere

From left, The Cleaning Lady's Elodie Yung, NCIS: Hawai'i's Vanessa Lachey and Quantum Leap's Raymond Lee.

This Monday, Sept. 19, for the first time in the history of American television, three shows with Asian American leads are premiering on the US networks on the same night.

The Cleaning Lady and NCIS: Hawai'i will begin their second season. Quantum Leap is coming back after a 30-year absence but with an entirely new cast that has Dr. Ben Song as the new central character.

Recording devices will be helpful as the air times conflict with each other.

If you subscribe to the streaming networks, you can also stream the shows: The Cleaning Lady on Hulu, NCIS: Hawai'i on Paramount and Quantum Leap on Peacock.

The Cleaning Lady

The Cleaning Lady, Season 2, premieres Sept. 19. On Fox, 9 p.m.

One of the most original series of last year, Thony de la Rosa, as played by Elodie Yung, who is an undocumented immigrant, came to the US seeking medical treatment for her son. Unsuccessful, she begins to live a double life, keeping secrets from her family, while cleaning crime scenes for Arman and dodging the law, including the smooth-talking FBI Agent Garrett Miller who is in pursuit. Using her cunning and intelligence to forge her own path in the criminal underworld, Thony does what is necessary to save Luca – even if it means sacrificing her own soul and values in the process. Last we saw Thony and her sister-in-law, played by Filipino Aussie Martha Millan, are about to embark on a path that will take them deeper into the underworld. Asian American fingerprints are all over this series developed by Chinese Canadian Miranda Kwok and produced by Filipino Canadian Shay Mitchell and Filipino American Rose Marie Vega.

NCIS Hawaii

NCIS: Hawai'i, Season 2 premieres Sept. 19, 10 p.m. CBS

The NCIS franchise really is trying to reflect Hawai'i's diversity with its casting. It features Filipino American Vanessa Lachey as Special Agent in Charge Jane Tennant, along with NCIS agents Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) and Jessica Knight (Katrina Law), track The Raven’s whereabouts to the island of Oahu and learn about his plans to attack RIMPAC (The Rim of the Pacific Exercises), the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise, on the exciting conclusion to the special crossover event and the season two-hour premiere. A warning to fans, the NCIS and NCIS Hawai’i season premiere will be a crossover event merging the two teams. The two-hour premiere event starts at 9 p.m. on NCIS and ends on NCIS: Hawai'i at 10 p.m. The story has the teams on the hunt for a dangerous suspect and unveils a complex network and a larger sinister plan that will take the D.C. team to Hawai’i in a race to thwart the next large-scale attack. It also stars Filipino American Yasmine al-Bustami, Alex Terrant, Noah Mills and Jason Atoon. I would love to see Tennant cook a Filipino meal for her family and friends. It's the Filipino way, hindi ba?

Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap, premieres September 19, 10 p.m. on NBC

Fans of the original Quantum Leap adventure series won't recognize the 2023 reboot. It's back and its features an Asian American in the lead role. Quantum leap, which ran for four seasons starring Scott Bakula, went off the air in 1993. The 2023 version stars Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song. It's been nearly 30 years since Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now, a new team, led by physicist Ben Song (Raymond Lee), has been assembled to restart the project in hope of understanding the mysteries behind the machine and the man who created it. Also on the ensemble cast is Nanrisa Lee playing Jenn Chou, a computer whiz.

FYI: for more programs this Fall featuring AANHPI actors in leading and prominent roles, click here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

 

The new 'Quantum Leap' dares to star an Asian American male lead

Raymond Lee plays Dr. Ben Song in 'Quantum Leap.'

Fans of the original Quantum Leap adventure series won't recognize the 2023 reboot. The time-traveling accelerator is still the launching pad for stories, but instead of Scott Bacula, it will star Raymond Lee as the brilliant quantum physicist Dr. Ben Song.

Lee's starring role is a quantum leap for Asian American male actor. The handful of   shows currently airing on television featuring Asian American leads are led by women. Lee's Quantum Leap is the only one with an Asian American male topping the call sheet this season.

At first, Lee, who is Korean American, couldn't believe he landed the Ben Song role. "I couldn't understand," he says, "because it seemed like they were interested in having me as the lead for their show. I thought, 'This has to be a typo.'

"It was one of those moments as an actor where you read the script and you go, 'I can do this!'" he says. "This is something I've worked for. I've had some great number ones [on the call sheet] who I've looked up to. I've watched and learned and absorbed. Now it's time to put it all to use."

FYI: Quantum Leap premieres September 19, 10 p.m. on NBC

The original Quantum leap, which ran for four seasons, went off the air in 1993. The new storyline picks up 30 years later after Bakula's Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now, a new team, led by physicist Ben Song, has been assembled to restart the project in hope of understanding the mysteries behind the time machine and the man who created it. 

Everything changes, however, when Ben makes an unauthorized leap into the past, leaving the team behind to solve the mystery of why he did it. Included on his team is computer whiz Jenn Chou, as portrayed by Nanrisa Lee.

Historically, Hollywood has relegated Asian men to secondary roles at best, or roles that play up the stereotypes at worst. Casting an Asian male into the lead role is stepping into a rare realm as far as leading men go. The immense popularity (and probably more important - box office success) of 2018's Crazy Rich Asians has helped shift that paradigm but old biases are hard to break down.

Only Young Rock, which features three Pacific Islander actors playing Hollywood's most profitable actor Dwayne "Rock" Johnson in various stages of his career, has dared to break the mold based on old Hollywood biases that an AANHPI male cannot carry a show or be attractive to the opposite sex.

Lee is not a newbie. He's paid his dues. He can also be seen on the AMC series “Kevin Can F*** Himself,” which began its second season August 22. Previously, he was a series regular on Alan Ball’s HBO series “Here and Now.” Additional recurring roles include the HBO Max series “Made for Love,” Fox’s “Prodigal Son,” Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle” and ABC’s “Scandal.”

Ironically, one of the roles he had early in his career was the 2013 "The Leading Man," starring Jack Yang. It was about a Chinese American actor who got fired from a show he was starring in.

"I love going beyond people's expectations of what someone who looks like me can do, and this is no different," he states. "It's just another challenge that I'll gladly go into headfirst.

"The more of us who are out there, the easier it is for kids growing up to see themselves in these parts," he adds. "I've considered my background, my appearance and my race to be a superpower my whole life."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Losing a daughter, two sisters and mother -- the unimaginable grief for Seattle man

LEE FAMILY

Within 2 weeks, Raymond Lee lost his two sisters and mother to the coronavirus.

ASAM NEWS

Raymond Lee has experienced in a matter of weeks more grief than any one should have to endure; he lost his mother and two sisters to the coronavirus within 13 days of each other, reports the Seattle Times. 

The loss of mother and sisters came atop the death of his daughter his daughter two years ago at the age of 21. Lee has turned to work as a way of coping.

“I work to keep my mind off the death of my daughter and the death of my mom and sisters,” he said to the Times. “I keep my mind busy. If I didn’t … it would be too difficult. You work to the point of exhaustion. I can’t dwell on it now. There’s too much pain.”

It began when his sister Regina died on March 16. She had collapsed in the bathroom of her home in Everett, WA. Regina’s sister Willa gave Raymond the bad news and also revealed she herself had a fever of 101. Willa would soon be admitted to intensive care.

Regina’s co-workers recall she had been coughing badly her last day at work and encouraged her to go home, but she refused. Two days later, she died, becoming the first known Costco employee to die of COVID-19.

More than 100 Costco employees who spoke to BuzzFeed criticized the warehouse club for its lack of transparency and for placing its workers at risk.

“Is business that much more important?” Raymond told BuzzFeed News. “Shame on Costco. They say, ‘We take care of employees.’ Bullsh*t.”

Workers fearing for their jobs agreed to talk to the BuzzFeed News anonymously.

A manager in Ohio criticized the chain for not following social distancing protocols and for keeping check out counters opened. Workers in Las Vegas criticized the store for allowing customers to touch non-essential items like clothes and patio furniture. One manager in Michigan said elderly hourly workers were asked to clean up an area where an infected employee had been without telling them why they were being asked to do that.

“Working for Costco during this devastating point of time has become a living nightmare,” said a Costco worker in Los Angeles. “They will continue to prioritize the needs of the business over their employees’ well-being, even when we are in a state of emergency. We were never prepared for this.”

Costco declined numerous requests from BuzzFeed for comment saying they were spending too much time responding to the media.

A week after Lee’s death, Costco began implementing more safety measures including letting employees work remotely, adding plexiglass shields to check out counters and providing PPG to its employees.

CEO Craig Jelinek issued a video message to employees on March 30.

“The business of Costco is important, and our communities and coworkers depend on us. But there’s no higher priority than your own well-being and the well-being of your families.”

The pandemic has made it difficult for Raymond to properly say goodbye to his loved ones.

The Times reports he was only allowed to sit in his car outside the cemetery and watch the hearse carrying his sister Regina go by. The funeral director would later give him a picture of the coffin and some sod from her burial plot.

At the funeral of his mother and sister Willa, immediate family was allowed to gather around the burial site.

“I don’t blame our governor,” he said. “We don’t want anyone else to be in jeopardy or give anyone else the possibility of getting the disease, but it was pretty sad.”