The First Season Of ‘Abbott Elementary’ Is Officially Perfect
The teacher sitcom just earned a 100 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The hard-working teachers of Abbott Elementary have earned a perfect 100 percent critic store on Rotten Tomatoes, as they rightfully should.
The workplace sitcom tracing the lives of four primary school teachers teaching at an under-funded school in West Philadelphia: Janine (Quinta Brunson), Gregory (Tyler James Williams), Jacob (Chris Perfetti), Melissa (Lisa Anne Walter), and their rather clueless Principal Ava (Janelle James).
Writer and comedian Quinta Brunson also created the show, which is said to be a tribute to her mother’s career as a teacher that spanned more than four decades. Abbott Elementary is apparently named after her sixth-grade teacher, Joyce Abbott, who still teaches at Andrew Hamilton School in Philadelphia.
Brunson, who plays the show’s protagonist as the most eager and big-hearted teacher, is an alumnus of A Black Lady Sketch Show, and rose to fame through the self-produced Instagram series The Girl Who Has Never Been On A Nice Date.
Somehow, she manages to use the very unfunny backdrop that is the underfunding of lower-income schools in the US to create a show that is both heart-warming and hilarious, while never trivialising the very real struggles that these teachers are dealing with.
For context, five months ago, a bunch of teachers in the US state of South Dakota ended up on their knees, scrambling for $5000 of cash during a hockey game so that they could afford basic things such as chairs, standing desks, and document cameras to allow them to upload lessons online. If that’s not dystopian, we don’t know what is.
In 2019, US teachers also started relying on social media to crowdfund for school supplies, which likely inspired Abbott Elementary‘s third episode ‘Wishlist’, where the teachers take to TikTok in an attempt to do the same.
Rotten Tomatoes‘ post about the series says: “Abbott Elementary earns top marks for its emphatic yet sidesplitting critique of the US education system, plus some extra credit for a deftly handled will-they-won’t-they dynamic.” True.
Watch the trailer for Abbott Elementary below.
Abbott Elementary is streaming now on Disney+.