English Teacher: Season 1

Quite honestly, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into with this series. I was thinking Abbott Elementary. It is, but also is not that show. And, heads up, it’s also not The English Patient. That’s something completely different (and way more boring). But, at its heart, this is a workplace comedy set in a school in Austin, Texas. And Texas being Texas  — despite Austin being the most liberal of Texas locations — is apparently a state where a male teacher being gay is still somehow at issue. Which I suppose being from L.A., and now living in a super-lib NJ town, seems like a pretty hard 1950s antiquity. But I will have to give into that pretense for what it is. I mean, I went to an all-boys high school in the 1980s and we most definitely had gay male teachers and nobody cared one wit about how they lived their lives. Even in the over-corrected homophobia of an all-male student body, it never came up. But, again, that’s my lived experience. It wasn’t Texas.

So why would I bring this whole thing up? Well, because, thematically, English Teacher does focus on the main character, Evan Marquez’s (Brian Jordan Alvarez), homosexuality. And it’s not as if there haven’t been sitcoms where the main character is gay, but a good deal of the show’s focus is on how his sexuality affects his job and his relationships in and out of the school. In other words, it’s not a show about a group of faculty where the main character happens to be gay. It’s about a gay teacher and how his gayness plays against his position as a teacher and member of said faculty and society. Says the straight, white guy. That all said, the series — which is only eight episodes long — does ease into a more generalized sitcom groove as the season progresses. Albeit one that definitely might be a bit too racy for, say, an NBC or FX’s parent network, Fox. One where it’s a little less about Evan’s personal life and more about the students, the school and the politics of the times. Wokeness, guns, snowflake Gen-Zs. You know, the usual. But also drag queens and gay bars, because the show is the show.

The part where I struggled a little bit is that Evan is really the least likable character on the show. He has both a bit of Jerry and a bit of George about him. He’s both uptight/stuck-up and a little bit irrationally crazy. But also has this odd delivery that kind of puts me off. I thought it was acting, but I listened to a podcast where Alvarez was the guest and that kind of slow, mushy drawn-out tone is just how he talks. Maybe it’s a Tennessee thing — which is where he grew up. But the other characters on the show are great. Stephanie Koenig, as his fellow teacher and best friend, brings the wacky positive energy, and the rest of the supporting cast — especially Sean Patton as the stereotypical/not-stereotypical gym teacher and Carmen Christopher as the school counselor — get all the good lines and laughs. Ironic, I guess, that Alvarez ends up playing the straight man in this pool of wackadoos. Honestly, everyone in the show is a better hang than him. Which I suppose might be the point. But when we’re stuck with him and his issues and relationships, I just kind of want to go back and mix it up with the gang.

Don’t think this show is anything but a sitcom, however. We don’t investigate childhood trauma with Evan. Or dig deep on his psyche in any real way. His character is all action and reaction in that arrested development way that seems weird for a 37-year-old man. The immature nature of which we’ve seen in male leads forever. Scared of commitment. Unsure when it is they need to get an adult job and take on adult responsibilities. Despite being on this planet for almost four decades. While all those around him are way more secure in who they are as humans. Even if who they are is kind of crazy. I suppose in investigating his struggle to understand who he is (or at least why he is the way he is) and seeing his growth in even a small way, we’ve moved a little beyond the typical multi-cam sitcom. Or at least the Seinfeld “No hugging, no learning” ethos. Ultimately, I did enjoy the show. There’s some funny stuff. And some stuff that they tried, but didn’t quite hit. While the school setting is hardly a new idea, I do think in season two that they’ve set things up in a way where they can take advantage of the modernity of the current student body and this weird world we live in, but also move beyond the school’s walls to show us the lives of this charismatic cast.