ONE SEASON WONDERS: The Faculty

THE FACULTY

Programming Details:

March 13, 1996 - June 26, 1996
13 episodes
ABC

Starring: Meredith Baxter, Jenica Bergere, Kurt Fuller, Peter Michael Goetz, Nancy Lenehan, Peter MacKenzie, Constance Shulman
Created by: Neil Thompson and Gary Murphy

Plot: Flynn Sullivan (Baxter) is the stressed out vice principal at Hamilton Middle School. Rather than focusing on classrooms, this series focused primarily on the faculty lounge as other school employees made up the main cast: Principal Herb Adams (Goetz), history teacher Clark Edwards (MacKenzie), new math teacher Amanda Duvall (Bergere), industrial arts teacher Edward Sloan (Fuller), English teacher Shelly Ray (Shulman) and Herb's secretary Daisy Skelnick (Lenehan).

Brief Pilot Review:
The Faculty marked Meredith Baxter's first return to a TV series after her long and successful run in Family Ties. As a teacher myself, I am always pretty critical of shows set in schools. I do think the idea to focus primarily on a faculty room instead of the classroom was something that set The Faculty apart from many other school sitcoms before and since. However, the unique concept was not matched by a unique show. It was a pretty formulaic sitcom that got off a couple funny lines (a good line about vaccinations and some good deliveries from Nancy Lenehan) but there were also quite a few duds. 

Baxter is a pro, but she was the straight woman and not compelling enough as a central figure. Baxter compared her character to Mary Richards but Mary was a much better defined character right from the jump. I also think they should have found a better premise with the "bad" student (Mike Damus) to start things off. Damus was terrible in a pilot I watched right before this one (My Guys), which premiered a month after this. But he was better here. At one point, Damus said to Baxter "why are you making such a big deal out of this?" and I had to agree. It seemed like an overreaction so Baxter's character pulling back from the initial punishment didn't feel like some big and important shift, it felt like how she should have reacted the whole time and that made it lose some of its effect. Despite my mixed reaction to the pilot, I do think this could have turned into a decent comedy if it had been given the chance.

What Went Wrong:

The Faculty was a midseason replacement for ABC and back in the mid 1990s, midseason replacements were often afterthoughts to networks so there couldn't have been high expectations for this series from the network. The promotion really leaned into the fact that it was focused on the teachers instead of the students after many school sitcoms like Head of the Class and Welcome Back Kotter that were more focused on a group of students with just one teacher. The show wasn't completely trashed by critics but it was mostly met with indifference with many pointing out that it felt like a pretty formulaic sitcom.

The Faculty premiered on ABC's successful Wednesday lineup between Ellen and Grace Under Fire but was moved to 9:30pm after a few weeks as they brought back The Drew Carey Show, a freshman that had been slowly building its audience. It ended up being yanked for most of May Sweeps and finishing its run in the summer and has probably been mostly forgotten. Baxter has gone on to guest star on many shows and appear in many TV movies but to date, The Faculty is her last foray into a regular role on a TV show. The rest of the cast has all had steady work but none of them were hidden gems in a 90s sitcom like there are in other cases.

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