FX just finished up its run of the well-reviewed, hugely controversial season of Alien: Earth, but they are leaping headfirst into another one of its well-liked productions.
That would be English Teacher, the comedy created and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez as a gay teacher navigating the complexities and often awfulness of the public school system. And it’s one of the highest-scoring comedies in recent memory with season 2 being no exception.
Right now, season 2 of English Teacher has a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes with a handful of reviews in. Despite the fact there’s more to come, all we have to do is look back to season 1 to see that had a certified fresh 98% score with nine times the reviews. Audience scores were a bit lower at an 83%, but hey, humor is subjective.
I watched season 1 and I did like it quite a bit. 98-100% like it? Not exactly, but I can see the appeal, and it’s certainly something that FX could use in its comedy lineup now that What We Do in the Shadows and Reservation Dogs have ended (no, it is not better than either of those). It does come off at times like an R-rated version of Abbott Elementary, though with 500% more cynicism and no talking straight to the camera, Office-style.
English Teacher is not exactly a series that’s going to have all that wide of a reach, nor a significant amount of hype around it, high scores or not, but this is FX. The channel and its endless link to Hulu does, in fact, care about prestige and scores, and it certainly helps when something is extremely low budget like English Teacher, with low overhead and zero big actors to pay out. What We Do in the Shadows ran for six seasons. Reservation Dogs for three, so I don’t see any reason that English Teacher may not be on for a while.
It’s also a production that is able to stick to yearly release, as it’s almost a year exactly since season 1 of English Teacher came out, a true rarity in the current streaming landscape, but one that comedies like this can hit more often (FX is famous for doing this with The Bear, the so-called comedy [please] that also manages yearly releases in between its Emmy nominations).
Sure, I’d recommend English Teacher. I don’t know if it will be for everyone and I have some reservations about Alvarez’s performance, but it’s a good comedy and worth checking out.
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