NBC is taking the sitcom back to school.
But this time, unlike previous favorites such as “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Head of the Class” and “Saved By the Bell,” they’re taking the focus away from students and putting it on the teachers.
We know this because the show is called “Teachers.”
The new half-hour sitcom premieres at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on KING-TV, Channel 5. The six-episode run will take some of the weight off “Scrubs,” which has been carrying the 9 p.m. Tuesday hour with back-to-back episodes since January.
| ON TV
“Teachers,” 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, KING-TV, Channel 5 |
The “Teachers” pilot won’t blow you away, but a future episode shows some promise if the writers and actors can eventually drop the stock sitcom shtick.
For all of its recent follies (see: “Good Morning, Miami,” “Coupling,” et al), NBC has given us two of the more edgy and interesting new sitcoms of the past couple of seasons in “My Name Is Earl” and “The Office.”
“Teachers” falls somewhere in the middle.
It doesn’t look or feel different from the rote comedies we’ve hated, but it’s funnier than those and quickly starts to develop some likeable characters.
The show is set in an underachieving New Jersey high school where the students don’t care and the teachers, faced with these apathetic students and layers upon layers of bureaucratic nonsense, are close to giving up.
What might save this show is its supporting cast, because star Justin Bartha just isn’t cutting it as the lead funnyman.
Bartha (“National Treasure”) plays Jeff Cahill, an English teacher who is almost as indifferent as his students.
We’re introduced to him within the first moments of the premiere, when he and another teacher interrupt a math class because the golf ball they’ve been hitting around the hallways made a wrong turn.
Bartha’s character can work; he just needs to lay off the smarmy smirk and slight head tilt that screams, “I know I just said something funny” every time he drops a one-liner.
Cahill has a crush on another teacher, Alice Fletcher, played by British comedy star Sarah Alexander.
By now, you’d think NBC would shy away from any connection to “Coupling,” but Alexander was one of the stars of the original British version of the show. That version is sometimes referring to by another title: “The Funny One.”
Alexander hits the right notes as her Fletcher skirts Cahill’s advances one after another. Fletcher is more serious about her work, which is partly why she says she’ll never go for Cahill, who blows off every element of responsibility.
One character we don’t see enough of is Principal Emma Wiggins, played by Kali Rocha, who played the flight attendant in Ben Stiller’s “Meet the Parents” and “Meet the Fockers.”
She brings the same over-the-top, unnecessarily strict demeanor to her role as school principal and absolutely nails it.
She shines in an upcoming episode in which the president of the Concerned Parents Association complains about a student field trip to see a production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
It’s an episode that I hope speaks to some upcoming storylines that will explore the nonsensical stuff that goes on in schools through the absurd lens they deserve.
“I am president of the Concerned Parents Association,” the parent tells Wiggins. “I can make your life hell.”
“I’m the principal of a public school,” she replies. “I’m already there.”
That line alone brings me back for another couple of weeks.
Victor Balta’s TV column runs Mondays and Thursdays on the A&E page. Reach him at 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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