With the growing success of Girlfriends, the series’ creator and producers decided to capitalize on their success and create a second series that would serve as a spinoff. On April 17, 2006, an episode of Girlfriends focused on a young woman who decides to put her pending career plans on hold for the rising success of her star athlete boyfriend. The character, Melanie Barnett, was introduced in the episode as being the first cousin of Joan Clayton, Girlfriends’ principal character.
The episode performed well and gained enough interest for The CW network to pick up the backdoor pilot as a new series for its fall 2006-07 primetime line-up. Originally, actress Renee Bruce was cast for the role of Melanie but was later replaced with Tia Mowry (of CBS Television Distribution’s own Sister, Sister fame). Before debuting on The CW, more cast changes occurred. Aldis Hodge and Jennifer Baxter, both whom appeared in the pilot episode, were replaced by Pooch Hall and Brittany Daniel respectively. Coby Bell, Hosea Chanchez and Wendy Raquel Robinson were the remaining cast members.
