Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Teachers: Cast Photo

Teachers aired from March until May 2006 on NBC.

The teacher's lounge at New Jersey's Filmore High was the setting for this short-lived comedy. English teacher Jeff ( Justin Bartha) was the sarcastic young slacker, usually in jeans, who claimed to hate teaching but was actually rather good at it; drama coach Calvin ( Deon Richmond) his best pal and coconspiritor; history teacher Alice ( Sarah Anderson) the cute, British object of Jeff's unrequited affection; biology teacher Dick ( Phil Hendrie) the older grumpy guy; Tina ( Sarah Shahi) the hot new substitute; Emma ( Kali Roche) the spineless principal; and Mitch ( Matt Winston) the brown-nosing tattletale. Stories revolved mostly around dates, rivalries and pranks.

Based on a British comedy of the same name.

A Review from Variety

Teachers
(Series -- NBC, Tues. March 28, 9:30 P.M.)
By BRIAN LOWRY

Filmed in Los Angeles by Two Soups Prods. in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. Executive producers, Matt Tarses, Bill Wrubel; supervising producer, Jonathan Goldstein; producer, Matthew Nodella; director, James Burrows; writer, Tarses;

Jeff - Justin Bartha
Alice - Sarah Alexander
Calvin - Deon Richmond
Dick - Phil Hendrie
Tina - Sarah Shahi
Principal Emma Wiggins - Kali Rocha
Mitch - Matt Winston

Continuing to mine British formats in pursuit of a comedy comeback, NBC attempts to replicate the process that has seen "The Office" become one of TV's best half-hours, but can't master the formula. Derived from a just so-so Brit series, the U.S. version of "Teachers" has lost much of its grit and feels thuddingly conventional. Show isn't a terrible fit with its "Scrubs" lead-in, but lacks signature qualities to help make the grade in a challenging timeslot.

In part, the series is most notable for what it isn't. Acerbic radio talk host Phil Hendrie turns up here in a supporting role, after unsuccessful efforts to develop a project around his double-talking antics in his principal medium. Here he's just another discontented grunt, snapping off one-liners.

The show's focus is Jeff (Justin Bartha), another youngish guy with a maybe not entirely hopeless crush on a co-worker, Alice (Sarah Alexander), a by-the-book prig who can't understand Jeff's "I don't care about this job" attitude.

Jeff's allies, meanwhile, including Calvin (Deon Richmond) and Dick (Hendrie), facing off against the spineless principal (Kali Rocha) and fellow teacher Mitch (Matt Winston), who, very much like Rainn Wilson's character in "The Office," is an officious tattletale with delusions of grandeur.

The premiere finds Jeff toiling away in a mediocre New Jersey high school, trying to woo an attractive substitute (Sarah Shahi) to make Alice jealous. The second episode involves a class field trip to see "Romeo and Juliet" that triggers an objection from a member of the Concerned Parents Assn. on moral grounds.

If the show really wanted to tackle an issue pertaining to academic freedom, it's hard to imagine a more convenient or less biting straw man to use.

Bartha (currently sidekicking it in "Failure to Launch") has a certain breeziness to his slacker routine, but at least two episodes in, there's little reason to root for his relationship with Alexander. Barring that, there's not much to get viewers invested, as all the roles seem to have sacrificed nuance for sitcom stereotypes.

Developed for U.S. television by Matt Tarses, "Teachers" isn't a painful exercise, but it's hard to imagine anyone coming away from these first few sessions feeling particularly enriched. Indeed, while NBC deserves kudos for launching "My Name Is Earl" this season, choices like "Teachers" and "Four Kings" represent the sort of nondescript workplace or residential ensembles that brought "Must-See TV" to its current predicament.

In short, "Teachers" is comedy played safe -- not a bad strategy if you're protecting a big lead, but hardly the game plan to erase a big deficit.

A Review from The New York Times

Back to School

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: March 28, 2006

"Teachers" is just the opposite: a conventional sitcom on NBC about young single people in search of love — and a better chalkboard. But it has been a while since a school served as a setting for a television show — "Room 222" and "Saved by the Bell" are ancient history; Fox canceled "Boston Public" in 2004.

"Teachers" has appealing moments. For all the predictable one-liners, pratfalls and canned laughter clotting the pilot, there are some funny riffs down the line.

Jeff (Justin Bartha) is an incorrigibly irreverent English teacher who makes constant wisecracks but has a serious crush on a fellow teacher, Alice (Sarah Alexander), a pretty but cold and prim British woman. His best friend, Calvin (Deon Richmond), is more inhibited, but Jeff always manages to entangle him in his schemes. Their only other ally in the teachers' lounge is Dick (Phil Hendrie), an older, burned-out misanthrope. ("When a well-meaning do-gooder gets a job like that, you know who suffers?" he warns when he learns that Alice is running for faculty chairwoman. "Work-dodgers and apathetics like us.")

In its better moments, the sitcom is a little like "Wings," but it will need more spark to hold an audience. Meanwhile, "Teachers" does confirm former Education Secretary William J. Bennett's harshest criticisms of the public school system: the series is all about the teachers; students barely make an appearance.

A Review from USA TODAY

'Teachers' gets it all wrong
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Will NBC never learn?

Last week the network finally yanked Four Kings, a hopelessly retro sitcom that was a dollar short and about a decade late.

So what does NBC do next? It premieres Teachers, a non-comedy non-starter that makes Kings look like a breakthrough.

Officially, the show is based on a British hit, the network not having learned its lesson from the failure of Coupling and the sustenance-level ratings of The Office.

But in reality, the show is an amalgam of every rebel-against-the-rules sitcom ever made: M*A*S*H by way of Welcome Back, Kotter.

The principal difference is that those shows were authentic to their times, where Teachers would have felt old and fake opposite Our Miss Brooks.

The head Teacher is Jeff, played by Justin Bartha, who proved in National Treasure that he's capable of being funny when he's given something funny to play.

Alas, here he's stuck in one of the most mundane of all sitcom roles: the seemingly apathetic slack-off who actually, secretly, desperately loves his job.

Hey, if he breaks the rules, it's only because he knows what's best for those kids, by gosh.

For allies, Jeff has his two best teacher friends: Calvin (Deon Richmond) and Dick (L.A.-based radio talk-show host Phil Hendrie).

For adversaries, he has a by-the-books principal (Kali Rocha) and the principal's pet (Matt Winston) — a character that is far too close to The Office's Dwight for comfort.

Of course, Jeff can't just have one love interest. He has to have two who are polar opposite personalities: a refined, somewhat clenched Brit (Sarah Alexander) and a hard-drinking, freewheeling American (Sarah Shahi).

And yes, as you've guessed, the two women will form a truce-like friendship.

It's true that even old ideas can yield new laughs in the right hands, but Teachers is all thumbs.

Even if there is some great appetite out there for a sitcom about uninspired teachers and uninvolved students, you can't possibly satisfy it with a show that makes you think no one involved has even the vaguest idea of what life is like in a real American high school.

Still, to its minimal credit, Teachers does make its incompetence clear early.

The scene before the opening credits is awful enough all by itself to send you fleeing to any one of the other networks, all of which have something better to offer.

Go now and save yourself the trouble.

That the show itself will flunk is pretty much a no-brainer. The only question is why the NBC executives who put this stuff on the air keep getting a pass.

If you have the answer to that one, please — teach me.

A Review from The Hollywood Reporter

Teachers’ earns passing grade
New workplace comedy has potential

REVIEW
By Barry Garron
Hollywood Reporter
updated 9:26 p.m. ET, Wed., March. 29, 2006

LOS ANGELES - “Teachers,” premiering Tuesday on NBC, is a workplace comedy in which the workplace is, more or less, irrelevant. The students are mostly atmosphere, and based on the premiere and one other episode made available for review, stories are more about courtship and camaraderie than curriculum and classes.

That’s not a knock against the show. Medical issues are mostly an afterthought on “Scrubs” (which precedes “Teachers”), but that hasn’t made it any less witty or entertaining.

“Teachers” is no “Scrubs,” at least for now, but it has potential. The leads are likable, attractive and work well together. The supporting cast is a talented bunch as well and endearingly eccentric. The pilot script from Matt Tarses, though not particularly emotionally engaging, is definitely more than just a collection of jokes.

The biggest drawback is its conventional four-camera look. Few people can pilot a sitcom better than director James Burrows, but it is getting harder and harder to win viewers with shows that, stylistically, look so familiar. Ironically, the initial plan was to make a hybrid show that mixed single-camera footage with studio audience scenes. The British series, on which this show is loosely based, is a single-camera, hourlong production. The NBC show changed course, though, and sacrificed a more modern look for instant feedback or audience energy or whatever reason is customarily given for sticking with the conventional.

At the center of “Teachers” is Jeff (Justin Bartha), an easygoing, spirited English teacher who is equal parts entertainer and instructor. His best friend, Calvin (Deon Richmond), is a former actor who teaches theater at the school. Then there is Alice (Sarah Alexander, whose career survived NBC’s version of Britcom “Coupling” and is gamely having another go at it), a goody-two-shoes teacher who spends most of her time outside the classroom fending off Jeff’s advances. In the opener, Tina (Sarah Shahi) comes to the school as a sub and quickly attracts Jeff’s attention.

Following an unspoken law of sitcoms, something happens to characters over 30 and annoying and/or irrational behavior takes hold. Examples in “Teachers” are the perpetually smiling principal Emma Wiggins (Kali Rocha), the brown-nosing math teacher Mitch (Matt Winston) and disinterested, wisecracking Dick (irrepressible radio host Phil Hendrie), who fears work above all else.

Friendly advice from the neighborhood TV critic: Sexual tension between Jeff and Alice fuels much of the comedy and must be maintained, even if it means foregoing that very special hooking up episode during a future sweep period. Apart from that, it would be nice for Jeff to be a little less callow, for Alice to be a little less prim and for the cast, at least occasionally, to use students and books as more than props.

For a Website dedicated to Justin Bartha go to http://www.justinbartha.altervista.org/

For a Website dedicated to Sarah Alexander go to http://www.celebritypalace.com/sarahalexander/

For a Website dedicated to Sarah Shahi go to http://www.sarahshahi.org/

For more on Teachers go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachers_(U.S._TV_series)