Neon Goes to Head of the Class

Neon is adding another HBO Max series — but this time within a week of its US launch.

The comedy Head of the Class will stream from November 10 whereas Neon’s initial batch of HBO Max series didn’t drop here until months after the US.

The Bill (Ted Lasso) Lawrence series updates the ’80s Howard Hesseman hit that was co-created by a real-life substitute teacher, Michael Elias.

It stars One Day at a Time’s Isabella Gomez in Hesseman’s role, as a new teacher in a San Francisco public school. According to The AV Club:

The general premise of Head of the Class is still the same in 2021 as it was in 1986: a rough-around-the-edges teacher is assigned to a group of gifted students and uses unorthodox educational methods to educate the kids on matters both in and out of the school, steering them to make the most of themselves even when they’re not in class …

Gomez is just as delightful here as she was throughout the four-season run of One Day at a Time. Now we just need to see if the rest of the show can rise up to meet her—at the moment, it’s got quite a climb ahead of it.

“After a bumpy pilot, the sitcom settles into a low-key likable vibe,” The Hollywood Reporter said.

“It’s a somewhat quaint and innocuous multi-cam that would have felt rousingly progressive in 1986 and would probably be too bland for ABC’s comedy lineup today, a show that neither gains anything nor loses much from tacking on the Head of the Class name.”