When the first trailer for English Teacher dropped, I was intrigued by the idea of a sitcom about a gay English teacher at a high school in a liberal-ish bubble in a conservative state. Having spent the last 12 years as a queer English teacher in both public and private schools in South Florida, I often encountered absurd situations that would make great sitcom fodder. But as I watched the first episode of English Teacher, I wasn’t as hooked as I thought I’d be or wanted to be. Why was something that should be so relatable falling short?
The show itself has all the makings of a perfectly engineered workplace comedy set inside a school. We have the makeshift co-worker friend group: the gay English teacher, Evan Marquez (Brian Jordan Alvarez); his best friend, straight female History teacher Gwen Sanders (Alvarez’s frequent collaborator Stephanie Koenig); the possibly libertarian gym-bro P.E. teacher, Markie Hillridge (Sean Patton); the clueless college guidance counselor, Rick (Carmen Christopher); and the lovable yet extremely cowardly and somewhat burned out principal, Grant Morretti (Enrico Colantoni). There’s also former teacher and Evan’s ex-boyfriend now friend-with-benefits, Malcolm (Jordan Firstman), and a new, gay teacher at the school who Evan is instantly attracted to, Harry (Langston Kerman). And then, of course, there is a litany of young people playing the students who cycle in and out of the episodes whenever they’re important to the plot.
The majority of the show’s attention is focused on the experiences of the adults, showing how Evan, Gwen, Markie, and even Rick and Grant struggle to navigate their jobs in a difficult and rapidly-shifting educational landscape where the “kids are just different now.” Particular attention is placed on Evan’s professional and personal lives, which always seem to be a little messy no matter how hard he tries to make sure they’re not. Together, the five of them have to contend with their Gen Z students’ addictions to their cell phones, the kids going from being “woke” to “circling back around to being for what they were against,” parents barking down their necks to change grades, and the general bureaucracy of being an educator in the public school system.
In the first episode, we’re launched directly into a storyline about a rich and influential parent trying to get Evan fired from the school for “being gay” (something I’ve actually experienced myself). In the sixth, that parent (Jenn Lyon) comes back to angrily demand that Evan do something about the fact that all of his students received failing grades on their midterm Red Badge of Courage essays. The third episode highlights the ways that teens manipulate language to garner sympathy and get what they want from the people around them, including from Evan and Markie. And the fourth puts Evan and Markie at odds when Evan gets a group of kids to protest Markie’s recently resurrected gun safety program because Evan thinks it’ll encourage school shootings. Like most sitcoms, English Teacher clears up the tension of these situations by the end of each 22-minute episode and every new one begins with a different set of problems to solve.
All of the triumphs and missteps made by Evan and the rest of the crew are buoyed by a barrage of what should land as quippy jokes and humorous observations. It’s easy to recognize that Alvarez and the rest of the writers don’t take themselves or their characters too seriously because so much of the show’s writing seems acutely self-aware. None of the characters or their personalities are free from a little skewering — everyone’s politics, their intentions, and the actions produced by both are gently and explicitly made fun of at some point. And there’s no lack of nuance either. Characters who would normally be relegated to some kind of stereotype, like Markie for instance, often do and say surprisingly insightful and thoughtful things that help shake Evan and Gwen out of their neo-liberal millennial “idealism” and myopia. They also signal to the viewer that not everything is exactly how it seems on the outside and some issues don’t have perfect solutions.
But the jokes just never hit as hard as they should. Not much about the humor or the observations made in most of the episodes is as original or refreshing as most of Alvarez’s other material, making it seem as if the show’s creators were in a mad dash to keep the show “current” without thinking too much about what will actually make us laugh out loud. The truly hilarious bits — like a subplot in the fourth episode about a “hottest” teachers ranking that Gwen finds herself near the bottom of — get pushed to the side to make way for Alvarez and the crew to weigh in on the “big issues” of the day and the result leaves the ending of most episodes feeling flat. I understand the desire to capture as much of the language and as many of the gestures of our weird (and usually terrible) zeitgeist as possible, but here, that creates mostly toothless comedic choices begging to be sharpened.
Despite these issues, I will say English Teacher gets quite a few things right throughout these short episodes. Education has changed drastically over the last decade. Especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, these kids really are “just different now.” They are more challenging to teach, especially in places where the curriculum isn’t reflective of the times we’re living in. Many of their parents are a constant burden when it comes to the sense of responsibility, accountability, and general joy of learning and critical thinking that teachers are trying to impart. On top of that, teaching is one of the most important vocations but is also a wildly thankless profession that depends on the altruism of its participants to truly make it work. Teachers are overworked and underpaid, and the kids — through no fault of their own — usually don’t respect educators’ positions enough to see how hard they’re working. English Teacher is effective in highlighting these issues, even if it rarely takes them on in a way that feels truly meaningful.
Like the students under the tutelage of educators everywhere, there’s a lot more room for English Teacher to grow. For now, I’m giving it a C.
The season finale of English Teacher will air on October 15 at 10 p.m. EST on FX, streaming the next day on Hulu.
