Shows from other networks and streamers have helped Netflix make it almost all of the way through 2024 without losing too much momentum after last year’s Hollywood strikes. Between comedies like Reba, Martin, and My Wife and Kids, as well as dramas including Lost, Prison Break, Fire Country, and Yellowjackets, Netflix has revitalized older and more recent series while the streamer’s original programing caught up after six months in limbo. A.P. Bio is one of the series from another streamer that’s coming later this month, and it’s our pick for the one Netflix show that you need to watch in November.
A.P. Bio originally ran for two seasons on NBC, where it didn’t manage to attract a large audience. But during the peak of the streaming era, A.P. Bio got a second chance at life on Peacock for two additional seasons. It’s not the first show from Comcast’s streamer to migrate over to Netflix, but it might have better luck than Girls5eva, which actually got a new season to go along with its new home.
Saturday Night Live veteran Paula Pell is the connecting link between both shows, and she is arguably one of the funniest performers on either. Yet the main reason why A.P. Bio could break out in its new streaming life is that this is a sitcom that’s simultaneously familiar and yet hilariously darker than many network TV comedies get to be.
Hangin’ with Mr. Griffin
TV comedies have a long history of placing put-upon teachers in leading rolls. The 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter is an apt comparison for A.P. Bio, because like Gabe Kotter (Gabe Kaplan) — the title character of the earlier show — Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton) had big dreams before he had to return to take a lowly teaching position at his hometown high school. But unlike Kotter, Jack is vengeful and he wants to do anything to get his retribution and escape his fate.
More recent comedy fans may notice some similarities between Jack and Community‘s Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), although the former is far more selfish. Think of this show as School of Rock, if Jack Black’s character had no redeeming values. Griffin doesn’t want to teach his newfound students anything, he just wants to enlist them in his numerous plans for revenge against his rival, Miles Leonard (Tom Bennett). As a philosophy professor, Jack’s not really qualified to be teaching Advanced Placement Biology in the first place, and he flat-out tells the kids in his class that he’s not going to teach them anything.
Because of the nature of these kind of shows, Jack’s harsher edges get a little faded over time. And a good deal of the comedy revolves around how far Jack is willing to go to get what he wants.
Never underestimate the value of a great supporting cast
Howerton is best known for starring in FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is still going almost two decades after its launch. He works best as part of an ensemble, and A.P. Bio gives Howerton a good cast to play off of, including Patton Oswalt as Principal Ralph Durbin. Oswalt’s idealistic Principal Durbin is the ideological opposite of Jack’s more self-centered character, and it’s almost always funny to see them together. Similarly, Pell lights up the screen so often as Durbin’s secretary, Helen Demarcus, that the series found a way to give her a larger role in the last two seasons.
Jack has his own circle of friends among his fellow teachers, including Stef Duncan (Lyric Lewis), Mary Wagner (Mary Sohn), and Michelle Jones (Jean Villepique). But some of the best moments in the show come from Jack’s interplay with his students, including Marcus Kasperak (Nick Peine), Heather Wilmore (Allisyn Snyder), Anthony Lewis (Eddie Leavy), Sarika Sarkar (Aparna Brielle), and Colin McConnell (Tucker Albrizzi). There wouldn’t be a show without them.
The series gets funnier … and weirder as it goes along
A.P. Bio took some time to find its comedic rhythm in the show’s earliest days, and it’s not a masterpiece out of the gate. It’s easy to forget that some of the long-running sitcoms of the ’90s, including Seinfeld and Friends, needed some time to find themselves as well. A.P. Bio didn’t get as much room to grow as those classics, but the third and fourth seasons in particular let the show embrace its own unique and weird comedy.
The fourth season premiere, for example, puts most of the main characters into fan fiction as written by the kids in Jack’s class. That fan fiction includes placing some of the show’s familiar characters into a bizarre Western, as seen in the picture above. Bruce Campbell also guest stars late in the series as Jack’s estranged father, John Griffin. And once you see John, it will be obvious why Jack turned out the way that he did.
Because A.P. Bio was canceled for a second time after its fourth season, the show doesn’t get a traditional sendoff. It works best as a snapshot in time of this school and these characters. There may not be a lot of closure, but there are a lot of laughs if this is your kind of comedy.
Watch A.P. Bio on Netflix on November 15.
