Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Faculty

The Faculty aired from March until August 1996 on ABC.

A cheerful, unmemorable sitcom set in the office and faculty lounge of a contemporary junior high school, Hamilton Middle School. Flynn ( Meredith Baxter), was the ernest, divorced vice principal, bustling about trying to keep things together despite a slightly off-kilter staff. Her absentminded boss, Principal Herb( Peter Michael Goetz), was distinguished-looking but totally clueless; best friend Shelly( Constance Shulman), was the drawling, acerbic English teacher; Amanda ( Jenica Bergere), the flighty young math teacher, a 60's type; Clark ( Peter Mackenzie), the milquetoast history teacher; Daisy ( Nancy Lenehan), the snippy secretary; and Luis ( Miguel A. Nunez, Jr), the young school nurse. The students were dumb and the laugh track loud. Or was it the other way around?
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An Article On The Series

Back to series TV and back to school Meredith Baxter stars in 'The Faculty'
By Frazier Moore, Associated Press television writer
More than a year after its planning began and four months after production wrapped, Meredith Baxter made her return to series television last week.

"Oooooo!" she said, anticipating it. "I had such a rush just now!"
Half ironic, half genuinely excited, Ms. Baxter was contemplating the at-long-last premiere of "The Faculty" Wednesday on ABC. The actress was in such high spirits during a Manhattan stopover that she even had good things to say about the frigid New York weather.
Even if only because "The Faculty" is wedged between hits "Ellen" and "Grace Under Fire" at 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, viewers are likely to give Ms. Baxter a warm welcome on her first sitcom since the long-running "Family Ties" left prime time almost seven years ago.
Not that Ms. Baxter has been idle in the interim. She has starred in a seemingly incalculable number of made-for-TV films -- some quite good, some not, and most falling within the bounds of the woman-in-distress genre.
Indeed, Ms. Baxter goofs on her past in promotions for "The Faculty," pledging that as middle-school vice principal Flynn Sullivan she won't be a bulimic, schizophrenic, murderer, kidnapper or alcoholic -- "and not once do I cry in the shower."
"It seems that every film I did, there was a shower scene," she says with a laugh. "I think it's a male thing: Men like to see women naked and vulnerable and wet. Go figure."
Somewhere in there is the answer to why Ms. Baxter decided to do another series (a water shortage?). Then, with the decision made, she set about looking for what she calls "a fun arena."
"I wanted the setting for the show to be a workplace," she explains. "I didn't want a family. I did that before. And I didn't want to do a child-focused show."
Among the early prospects for a suitable arena: a fashion magazine ("but my first impulse was: all those bubbleheads"), an ad agency, a small newspaper.
Then she and her associates hit upon the idea of a school -- but with a difference. Despite all the TV sitcoms and dramas that have been set in schools, "The Faculty" may be a first: It seldom if ever shows a classroom.
In the same way that "Taxi" mostly took place back at the garage, not out on the streets, and dealt with the cabbies, not their fares, "The Faculty" dwells not on students, but on the staff, particularly in their no-kids-allowed refuge, the faculty lounge.
"You get to see how they are not as the children see them, in class. We want to show the relaxed side, the funny side ... the dark side ... the underbelly!" Ms. Baxter says.
As both sitcoms and faculty lounges often are, "The Faculty" is filled with eccentrics. Among them, the soft-spoken but addled principal (played by Peter Michael Goetz). The sarcastic, controlling secretary (Nancy Lenehan). The stuffed-shirt history teacher (Peter MacKenzie).
As for Ms. Baxter's character, Flynn, she is dedicated, capable and much too harried to ever quite kick her smoking habit. She is 90 percent dignity, 10 percent dizziness.
"I would love to go with less dignity," Ms. Baxter confesses, "but as the lead you have to carry the show's seriousness. It's a lot like 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' -- everyone around her can be a little nuts, but there has to be some center there that viewers can believe in."
Meanwhile, Ms. Baxter has another role on "The Faculty." She is one of its executive producers.
"That makes this show so different for me," she says. "In 'Ties,' I came on as a hired hand. At lunch, I could take naps, instead of meetings.
"For the past 18 months with this show, I've been involved in picking a concept, hiring writers, casting, selling the show to a network, supervising scripts. Plus performing. It's hard doing it all," she says, the soul of sweetness as she adds, "It makes me cranky."
"The Faculty" began production last summer, and finished its first batch of 13 episodes around Thanksgiving.
"We had such a nice time working together," she says. "The other cast members are all good actors and lovely people. I can't imagine not going back and doing more."
Yet of course she can imagine it. "The Faculty" might be a smash. But as she well knows, it might not make the grade.
So Meredith Baxter realizes that, in a sense, the test is over, and that all she can do now is wait. It will be the viewers who assign her show a "pass" or "fail" score.

A Review From The New York Times

by John J. O'Connor
Published: March 20, 1996

"The Faculty," which airs ABC, ia set in a suburban junior high school. The star, and one of the executive producers, is Meredith Baxter, once the mom on "Family Ties" who stared daggers through scene-stealing Michael J. Fox. This time she's Flynn Sullivan, vice principal, who has to deal with a lovably eccentric staff and assorted student cutups. One of the latter was found spraying graffiti about Clark (Peter Mackenzie), the nerdy history teacher. Sarcastic Shelly (Constance Shulman) offered scant consolation: "What you do with farm animals is your own business."

Here redux is everything from "Welcome Back, Kotter" to "Head of the Class." This evening, the faculty decides to pull a prank on an impossibly ebullient new teacher, Amanda (Jenica Bergere) by inventing a fictitious student named Carlos Garcia. A Japanese executive, who has promised the school a gift of computers, then personally selects Carlos from a computer file to represent the school. Consternation! Frenzy! Wisecracks! Business as usual.

But the show, another for the family-entertainment bin, is carried off with an appealing verve. Ms. Baxter's Flynn, divorced for two years, manages to be quite attractive while scowling and dripping bitter wit. Paul Michael Goetz is perfectly dizzy as Herb, the flaky principal who does a mean tap dance to "Tea for Two." And Nancy Lenehan is fiercely potty as his overprotective secretary. One curious bit: despite an occasional extra lurking in the background of the faculty lounge, this would seem to be the smallest junior-high staff in the country. Oh, those budget cuts.

For the Meredith Baxter Fan Club go to http://www.meredithbaxter.org/