English Teacher is a funny, mostly sunny look at modern education

They’re obviously on different networks and nights, but there is a case to be made that English Teacher, the delightful new FX comedy that runs for eight 20-minute episodes, would be the perfect show to follow HBO’s Industry on Sundays. If the latter is a brutal look at what work—or, more accurately, work conditional on making money, no matter how humanity-crushing the tactics—does to people, the former is a mostly sunny one (visually, as it’s set in Austin but also tonally, in a high-school comedy kind of way) that’d make for a nice, light palate cleanser.

This isn’t to suggest that the workplace show from creator Brian Jordan Alvarez, who also stars and co-writes and -directs, shies away from dark or complicated topics or is wary of going deep. Most episodes, in fact, are centered on or at least mention the High School Issues Of This Insanely Divisive Political Moment: drag performances, book bans, school shootings, ChatGPT-penned papers, homophobia, A.I. porn, and the like. But the vibe here is steadfastly that of a joke-stacked sitcom, with more in common with the dependable ribbing of FX’s What We Do In The Shadows than, say, the trauma unpacking of The Bear. Actually, better yet: Think of it as having the friend-confessional, talky spirit of Superbad—like that movie, this show also gets raunchy and has plenty of student-drawn penises—only from the teachers’ perspective. 

Alvarez (from the Will & Grace reboot, Jane The Virgin, and his web series, The Gay And Wondrous Life Of Caleb Gallo) plays Evan Marquez, a thirtysomething teacher in a suburban school who, in the first episode, is reprimanded for kissing his then-boyfriend Malcolm (a very funny Jordan Firstman) on campus. (As much as these kids can articulate being triggered and discuss nonbinary issues, some of their parents still very much live in Texas.) To get through his days, he vents to his best friend, fellow teacher Gwen (Stephanie Koenig, also from Caleb Gallo); annoys his ever-irked principal Grant (Just Shoot Me!’s Enrico Colantoni); winces at the un-P.C. coach Mark (Sean Patton); and shrugs off the many non-sequiturs thrown at him by college counselor Rick (The Bear’s Carmen Christopher). (Here’s a sample, which Rick drops, unprompted, while exiting a staff meeting:  “I gotta go, my mom and dad are getting back together.”)  

A workplace comedy’s success rests on the chemistry between these colleagues and whether those dynamics are strong and well-drawn enough to make viewers want to hang out with them week to week. And in this respect, English Teacher passes, with a notably reliable repartee between Evan and Gwen, who are the type of friends who discuss any hookup or dry-spell and also, as made clear in a clever cross-cutting between their argument and that of two of their students, resort to being just like the petulant teenagers who irritate them. 

Throughout, Evan remains our compass, with his face almost always in some form of “this is crazy, right?” mode, but the show does a nice job of making him not simply the righteous, indignant hero. When he confronts a new teacher/crush Harry (Langston Kerman), for instance, saying that they can’t have sex (or, embarrassingly, get married) as one of them would lose their job, English Teacher underlines that its titular character isn’t the sole sane one here. (On that note, there is a great moment when, while the pair are having a flirty homecoming-planning dinner, Malcolm, Evan’s aforementioned ex/current fuck buddy, sidles up to them and announces, sarcastically, “Are you fucking kidding, you come to my favorite restaurant!? I’m six months pregnant, you bitch!”) 

Like with the cream of this genre, the guest characters here also deliver, particularly a drag artist who teaches football players how to properly perform for the school’s powderpuff game. (Coach Mark’s take on the antiquated ritual, which brings back flashes of Friday Night Lights: “Big football dudes dressed like cheerleaders? That’s the height of comedy, man, come on.”) And on a field trip, an extremely handsy parent chaperone is obsessed with keeping teens from engaging in new sex trends like “tip licking,” “no-loads-refused cum dumpster,” “reverse glory hole,” and, the funniest of the bunch, “stone facing.” 

Admittedly, the show does have some loose ends (Evan’s crush and ex just sort of…disappear?), but, as only the first six of eight episodes were screened for critics, here’s hoping those are tied up by the season finale. That 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 premieres September 2 on FX