This is good fun overall and manages to not be too preachy - which is ironic -, whilst offering a smattering of historic value.
It also makes for a welcome change, of late at least, for a show to dare show both good, bad and unquestionably idiotic black characters and be pretty unapologetic with them at times. Clearly though, it's mainly white characters of the time (?), who deservedly take the brunt.
Hawke is excellent and it did feel like it sometimes suffered without him, although I'd imagine much more could've been too much and Johnson manages to Carry On (!) things in the main without him.
Period pieces (comic air or otherwise) generally had me questioning if people portrayed to be that dense were done so, at times, unfairly or remotely realistically. Recent times have swung my opinion (or is that onion) more firmly in the yes direction: they were pretty stupid and unchallenging to say the least - why am I visualising Blazing Saddles...,