Priyanka Chopra showcased both her comedic and musical sides Tuesday afternoon in ABC’s upfront opening, when the network also elected to somewhat weirdly shoehorn in a Prince tribute.
The sentiment of throwing in a few seconds of the deceased musician’s hit song “Kiss” and some purple effects was sweet, we suppose — but it totally lacked context. The moment came towards the end of Chopra dancing and lip-syncing to an ABC-centric parody of Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk,” and there was no real bridge from one to the other.
The whole Lincoln Center, New York, event kicked off with a not-particularly-successful attempt at comedy, in which “Quantico” stars Chopra and Jake McLaughlin interrogated a bunch of other ABC talent. It was all a setup for new tagline, “It all begins with ABC.”
After the pre-taped portion, Chopra danced down the audience aisles and mouthed along to the original tune, which boasted a hook of “ABC, You Must Watch.” Then the Prince thing happened, with “Black-ish” kid Miles Brown doing his best impression of the “Little Red Corvette” singer.
At some point, one of the “Goldbergs” kids tried his hand at rapping as on-screen alter-ego Big Tasty. We’re not saying it was a lame opener overall, but TheWrap is pretty comfortable with the opinion that Jimmy Fallon still owns the top kickoff to a 2016 upfront. Read about that one here.
As for the actual business at hand, check out ABC’s 2016-2017 fall schedule here.