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A.P. Bio (2018)
A Dark Comedy that might not be for everyone
The main character Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton) is a self-destructive, arrogant, entitled, bitter, stubborn jerk with a lot of anger and grief issues who has lost a lot recently. He never deals with these issues.
The class he teaches is full of intelligent, motivated students who yearn to learn biology. He openly refuses to teach them. He often makes philosophical references (his college major and career focus as a college professor) when explaining his desires or actions. Unlike The Good Place, the character deliberately refuses to explain them in depth.
Instead, he ropes them into his "projects" - mostly short-sighted, petty actions. He seeks revenge against his rival Miles (Tom Bennet), a self-help feel-good guru who is magnitudes better-off than Jack. He is jealous because Miles is living the life he wishes he had. He desperately wants to get back with his High School ex-girlfriend Meredith (Collette Wolfe), a doctor at the local hospital.
He doesn't miss her and doesn't want to rekindle their past romance in order to hang onto something familiar or comforting. He just wants to have sex with her. When he finds out she's in a long-term relationship with another doctor (Mike O'Gorman), who is eerily just as childish and competitive as him, he seeks to break them up.
The joy is that he is obviously unhinged and anti-social, but somehow is allowed to teach and have access to students. Unlike with other shows, he never gets better and refuses to let go of his negative feelings. He does help his students, but only in the most destructive, selfish, and foolish ways possible. It's brilliantly evil.
Patton Oswald carries a lot of water on the show as the principal, acting as the connective tissue between Jack and the other teachers. His character is typical fictional Patton Oswald fodder - a nerdy, uptight, insecure man who is weak-willed. (Frankly, "real-life" Patton Oswald would probably kill it as the nihilistic and intelligent Jack.) This is his wheelhouse and he has a good, well-written character with lots to do.
My only quibble is that the three female teachers get more time than the students. Sometimes the female teachers' subplots are really filler and add nothing to the plots. The students are kind of stock and bare-bones, but they are well-written and potentially could be more fleshed out. The characters of Heather (Allisyn Ashley Arm) and Colin (Tucker Albrizzi) are examples of students that are hinted at and get more fleshed out and important as the show progresses. They should have more interaction between there two groups, like showing the students in the other teachers' classes. I guess the writers have to deal with a large cast of supporting characters and the many moving parts make it hard to get them all into play. Otherwise, this show would get a 9 or 10.
It's one of those things that you will either like it or not. Some shows like Community or Wonderfalls get a cult following that find the concept appealing. Other shows like Parks and Recreation or Don't Trust The B*tch in #23 take time to build a viewerbase.
The Avengers: The Interrogators (1969)
Deviously written.
This is probably one of the better Avengers episodes. British officers involved in military intelligence disappear for a few days, then their contacts are assassinated. The officers involved turn up, but refuse to explain their disappearance. Steed and King investigate the suspicious disappearances but run into a dead end. Then Ms. King is ordered by Colonel Mannering (Christopher Lee) of Inter-Departmental Security to attend a Test of Human Endurance course to test her resolve under interrogation to check whether she is a security risk. The facility, Centre #53, is a remodeled British manor house. The subjects are "checked in" to their cells, where they are relentlessly tortured by uniformed British enlisted men assisted by orientals in Communist Bloc uniforms. After the sessions, however, they are free to have a few drinks in the facility pub, engage in sports, or play a few hands at cards...with the knowledge that they could be whisked away at any moment to their cell. The irony is that the IDS uses the very nature of the British officers to capture and break them. They obey orders without question, trust their superiors and the authorities, and have a naive bravado and sense of fair play. The question becomes who does IDS really work for? And should The Avengers stop them? The paranoid tone of the episode makes it seem more like a Danger Man / Secret Agent episode by Markstein. It also has a surprisingly realistic view of torture techniques for such a fantasy show. The highlight, though, is Christopher Lee as the quintessential British officer.