Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Head Of The Class’ On HBO Max, Where Isabella Gomez Teaches A Group Of Teen Geniuses In A Reboot Of The ‘80s Sitcom

Head Of The Class is a reboot of the 1986-91 series that pretty much anyone in high school during that period thought was exactly like their class (for me, it was my junior-year AP History class). The locale has been transferred from New York to Los Angeles, and a new group of smart overachievers are meeting their new debate teacher for the first time. But is it any good?

HEAD OF THE CLASS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Three teenagers walk down the hall of their high school, with one complaining that she stayed up all night doing her coding homework.

The Gist: Alicia Adams (Isabella Gomez) wants to be a bit of a different teacher from the last one, who abruptly quit to do anything but teaching. She moves the class to the library and guesses everyone’s name by “vibe” (she has a cheat sheet in front of her). It’s her first teaching job, so she’s defining her “style” as she goes.

The kids in the class — Overconfident Luke Burrows (Gavin Lewis), Computer whiz Robyn Rook (Dior Goodjohn), Never-taking-chances Miles Mendelson (Adrian Matthew Escalona), affable Terrell Smith (Brandon Severs), and Model UN delegate Makayla Nguyen (Jolie Hoang Rappaport) — think they can just learn on autopilot, but Alicia has other ideas. She launches them into a debate on cancel culture, and she tells Terrell to talk about how he feels about it instead of just restating talking points.

But there’s another issue to discuss: Luke and Miles try to get into the coolest party of the semester; Miles makes his way in via a “momvite” because his mom is yoga buddies with the cool kid’s mom. he livestreams the party, and everyone — including Alicia, AV Club teacher Elliot Olsen (Jorge Diaz) and Principal Maris (Christa Miller) — tries to give him encouragement. But he gets in trouble with Luke when the cool kid prompts Miles to say his best friend is “a little thirsty”.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This version of Head Of The Class less resembles the original ABC series than it resembles a Nick or Disney teen series in the iCarly vein.

Our Take: This new version of Head Of The Class is produced by Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso) and the showrunners, Amy Pocha and Seth Cohen (Paradise PD, American Vandal). It spends a lot of the first episode introducing the viewers and the class to Alicia, with her goofy charm, her unconventional methods, and her story about flaming out at Google before becoming a teacher.

And if there’s anyone who could fill the shoes of Howard Hesseman and Billy Connolly in that role, Gomez is a good choice. Even though she’s younger than either of her predecessors, she proved during three-and-a-half seasons of One Day At A Time, she’s very capable of being that central character; here, her charm and physical comedy chops are both on display, and her scenes with Miller, a sitcom vet, are fun to watch.

The rest of the first episode feels less like the original show, that had distinct characters among the staff and the students, than a more generic high school sitcom. The students are all “GPA junkies,” as Alicia calls them, but they mostly seem to be cut from the same teenage cloth. Luke and Miles are the most unique, but Miles is distinctive mainly because of his look than anything else.

They’re not even in a gifted program, which is strange, but makes sense given how schools operate these days. They’re in some sort of generic debate class that acts as a weak substitute. When we see people from the honors program of the old series show up, like Darlene Merriman (Robin Givens), it’ll show audiences that having the distinctive character “types” for each student is what made the show so memorable.

There is a chance that the chemistry among the students can grow and they each grow into their roles, but right now the show is being carried on the capable shoulders of Gomez, and that may be enough to start with.

What Age Group Is This For?: This version of Head Of The Class is very obviously geared towards a family crowd, so we’ll say 9 and up.

Parting Shot: Everyone pulls up the video of Alicia melting down at a Google meeting as she leaves the room to get water.

Sleeper Star: Gavin Lewis has the most experience of the teens in the cast, and it shows. We’re also intrigued by Sarah Watson (Katie Beth Hall), who has the hots for Terrell but is very tough and businesslike. She was also called “Tall Sarah” even though she’s now shorter than “Short Sarah”.

Most Pilot-y Line: Luke starts all his debate answers with the phrase “As a future U.S. senator…” Dude, is being a senator really a big ambition anymore?

Our Call: STREAM IT, but by the thinnest of margins. We’re recommending it on the strength of Gomez’s lead performance and Lawrence’s ability to guide his showrunners to better episodes as his shows first seasons go along. But it’s too generic at this point to be considered a decent family sitcom, much less a successor to such a well-loved ’80s series.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Head Of The Class On HBO Max