English Teacher

It is almost unspeakably refreshing to discover the next great show. With FX’s The English Teacher, which premieres Sept. 2, the joy is twofold: The knowledge that the new comedy series is objectively, undeniably great, but also the realization—and ensuing comfort—that the sensibility and humor is directly for me.

A brilliant, warmhearted, low-stakes comedy.

What elevates the series is a sweetness that connects the characters, and a sense amid the sitcom situations of people, young and old, grasping toward something meaningful, and sometimes coming together in what resembles a solution, a step forward.

English Teacher’s impressive jokes-per-minute count delivers a steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments (a simple back-and-forth about Shrek is a contender for joke of the year). And as deliciously dense episodes whiz by, the show challenges viewers to keep up in the best way possible. Chief among English Teacher‘s hit comedy ingredients is A+ casting. .... It’s a winning comedy at the top of its class, and school will hopefully be in session for many seasons to come.

FX’s sharp, savage English Teacher takes a refreshingly unsentimental look at public schools — and is one of the year’s funniest new shows.

Tremendously clever and squarely focused on some of the most noxious fronts in the culture war, each episode provides plenty of fodder for audiences to thoughtfully engage with: Gun violence, drag panic, and the oppressive social order of heteronormativity are all subjects that English Teacher handles deftly in tidy 23-minute chunks. But mostly? It’s just really goddamn funny.

“English Teacher” takes a while to heat up. But when you get to episode six of the new FX comedy, you’ll be hooked. There, Linda Harrison (Jenn Lyon) enters the picture and demonstrates what kind of challenges teachers face today. .... It’s a great addition to cable’s curriculum and a chance for the oh-so-talented Alvarez to show the breadth of his resume. But Jenn Lyon? She’s one to watch.

It is a blessedly funny straight-ahead sitcom, which at this point is the true rarity on TV. And amid its broad-strokes zeitgeist gags, it has enough quirk and complexity to capture the weirdness of adolescents and the people in charge of them.

English Teacher radiates confidence from the very beginning, striking a savvy balance between funny character beats and timely observations from the increasingly politicized realm of public education. It is easily the year’s best new sitcom to date.

“English Teacher” delivers consistent laughs, evincing a sunny disposition even in the face of complex and complicated societal issues that constantly — and usually hilariously — encroach on its high school classrooms.

Tonally, it veers between the cynicism of Max’s industry satire “The Other Two” and the sincerity of Quinta Brunson’s “Abbott Elementary.” The balancing act doesn’t always work—but when it does it yields something at once smart, heartwarming, and appealingly irreverent.

While it is possible to get nitpicky about a few of the gags or storylines that don’t work quite as well as they should, in truth, even most of them could likely be remedied with more time.

It takes a bit of time and patience to settle into the improvisational chaos permeating the earliest “English Teacher” episodes, but once the cast and writers find the right balance and cadence those freewheeling segments augment the show’s broader points about the ways we tend to talk past each other.

“English Teacher” is a charmingly topical romp that finds its conflicts in social media, cellphone surveillance, cancel culture and administrative cowardice.

English Teacher may require a bit of time to click with you, but after a few episodes, I mostly stopped taking notes, except to repeatedly observe, “I like this show.” Which I do.

English Teacher passes with flying colors. [26 Aug - 15 Sep 2024, p.4]

The surrounding ensemble is great fun as well, but it’s hard to see English Teacher being such a blast without Alvarez at the center. He’s never once overplaying things while remaining more than able to hit those humor high notes when the show calls for it.

I’m a cynic by nature, but for better or for worse, English Teacher has charmed me enough to hope that, if the series is granted the time and space it needs, it can begin, at the very least, to quench today’s TV comedy drought.

Breezy, sunny series (each episode is just under 30 minutes). .... You have the right fixings for a comedy that we can only hope will graduate to a sophomore season.

With a promising starts, there’s still plenty of time to keep pushing its comedic potential.

Likely-not-actually-a-quibble quibble aside, English Teacher is largely a treat, a story that nods to classic high-school-movie tropes, complete with ’80s-pop needle drops—“She Drives Me Crazy,” “I Can Dream About You,” “Maniac,” “Gloria”—and purple-neon-cursive title cards, yet could only be told today.

"English Teacher" is good — if broad — in its approach. That’s how Brian Jordan Alvarez, who created and stars in the show, tackles seemingly every hot-button issue surrounding education and, why not, modern life. It’s a show that is trying too hard at times, but we should applaud the effort.

Still, for all its handling of today’s (unfortunately) hot-button topics (non-binary people, book bans, rogue school boards, “wokeness”), English Teacher is a breeze – a tricky mix of wit, silly humor and heart with plenty of potential. For now, it gets a passing grade, with a request for more study and, hopefully, a bright future.