New first-look photos have dropped via Entertainment Weekly for Yara Shahidi’s black-ish spinoff, grown-ish. 

She and creator Kenya Barris are also dished on the new show and its influences with the magazine.

“It’s strange and fantastic. Within five days of shooting, I had gone to three college parties, had ditched my friend, all sorts of stuff,” said Shahidi, who deferred her acceptance to Harvard University to begin shooting the show.

The show, originally set for ABC, was moved to Freeform, which included a name change from college-ish to grown-ish and “a shift to more serialized storytelling in order to fit with the network’s looser style.”

Citing The Cosby Show spinoff A Different World and the short-lived Sex & The City prequel The Carrie Diaries as inspirations, creator Kenya Barris said, “Changing networks was probably one of the best things that could’ve happened to this show because the audience on Freeform is really [who] this is for. The notion of continuing your investment in a character before and after you meet them is fascinating to me. I love those sorts of origin stories that increase mythology.”

The show’s pilot is also said to pay homage to The Breakfast Club as Zoey wrangles together a “disparate yet tight-knit” friend group: “her crush Aaron (Trevor Jackson), the oblivious Vivek (Jordan Buhat), her closest friend Nomi (Emily Arlook), and Cuban Republican Ana (Francia Raisa).”

“We have such an interesting group of characters that don’t seem to feel like they would ever know each other if it wasn’t for this class. It kind of goes back to the coming-of-age tale of how much of our experience is shared,” said Shahidi.

grown-ish premieres January 3 on Freeform at 8 p.m. with a one-hour premiere