A.P. Bio Review: Barely passing, but shows promise
By Erin Qualey
Just like a know-it-all high schooler, NBC’s A.P. Bio isn’t as clever as it thinks it is.
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Jack Griffin is a mess. After losing his dream job as a professor at Stamford, he slinks back to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, moves into his dead mother’s house, and inexplicably takes a job in a high school teaching A.P. Biology to a bunch of teens. Basically, it’s your classic fish-out-of-water, debauched adult paired with precocious children situation.
Glenn Howerton of Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame steps into the role as sad sack Jack. He’s pathetic, depressed, and desperate. But the show doesn’t really seem interested in exploring those traits much beyond how Jack interacts with the world around him. Given that this new series is on a major network, there’s no latitude for getting to the real grit of Jack’s depression. Instead of exploring the emotional consequences of Jack’s breakdown, his declining mental health is primarily communicated through his wardrobe – a rotating series of stained sweatpants and chunky cardigans. In terms of character, there doesn’t seem to be any effort to give us insight into how Jack is coping. Everything he does telegraphs: just leave me alone, let me do whatever the hell I want, and I’ll be fine.
Of course, Jack isn’t fine, and the community that surrounds him won’t leave him alone. And the very boundaries that Jack sets with his students from the first moments of the pilot – “I will not learn from you. I will not secretly teach you things.” – are pretty much smashed from the get go. One of the most disappointing things about A.P. Bio is that it acts like it’s going to throw all those tired old tropes out but, instead of taking the road not traveled, it just muddles along on fumes.
Die hard Sunny fans looking to find Howerton reprise the menacing intellect of Dennis Reynolds on A.P. Bio are likely to be disappointed. As Jack, Howerton slips into the role of Dennis Lite™®, and comparisons to his sociopathic Sunny character become inevitable. On Always Sunny, Dennis frequently talks about what a genius he is, but he also pulls off horrific stunts that actually show viewers, in dizzying detail, how that genius translates to real life situations. Not so with Jack.
Aside from a few mutterings about general philosophy, Jack never actually demonstrates any sort of keen intelligence. Instead, he carries around the brand name of Harvard – his alma mater – like a talisman, invoking it whenever he needs credibility or to shut someone up. It works, and that does say something about our brand-obsessed culture and the bad behaviors we condone in the name of “quality”, but the show never really bothers to explore that issue in detail either.
For all his faults, Jack’s interactions with his students are actually intriguing because he mostly treats them all as equals. He’s enlisted them as a braintrust in order to take down his rival, the classy and cool Miles (Tom Bennett). For the most part, the teens have decent chemistry with Howerton, especially budding valedictorian Sarika (Aparna Brielle) and goth loser Devin (Jacob McCarthy), but in the first four episodes available to reviewers, they never move past the superficial interactions of everyday life in high school.
The rest of the high school staff is a mixed bag. Patton Oswalt takes the role of straight man as Principal Durbin, while Jack and the other teachers run roughshod all over his policies. Notably, there’s a trio of sassy female teachers – Michelle (Jean Villepique), Mary (Mary Sohn), and Stef (Lyric Lewis) – who, in reminding us that tenured teachers do as they please, provide a nice compliment to Jack’s bad behavior in the classroom. They’ve got a bubbly yet boundary-pushing energy about them, and I’d love to see more of them as the season progresses.
Unfortunately, the ladies are mostly relegated to B-stories seemingly in order to fill time. It’s as if A.P. Bio isn’t sure if it wants to be a comedy about the utter ridiculousness of public high schools, or a show about the emotional redemption of a selfish soul. I truly wonder what A.P. Bio could have become on a cable network where there’s more latitude to explore the unpleasant messiness of life.
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Despite the unevenness of the first four episodes, there are some moments of promise. The actors seem to be committed to the material, and they all do play off one another in an organic way that elicits laughs even from the half-baked material.
Also, one of the trailers – which I can’t seem to currently find online – showed an inspired and original collaboration between the motivated students and Jack in their quest to break his rival, but unfortunately this sinister twist wasn’t hinted at in the screeners. I won’t spoil it here, but watching a bunch of overachieving students tear down an innocent man for no reason at all may be just the type of extra credit A.P. Bio needs to earn a pass onto my DVR.
‘A.P. Bio’ sneak peek airs Thursday, February 1st at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.