X
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Netflix
Summary Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) becomes the first woman of color named Chair of the English department at Pembroke University in this dramedy series written by Amanda Peet.
Created By: Amanda Peet, Annie Julia Wyman
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 2021
- TV-MA
- Netflix
The Chair (2021)
Season 1 Premiere: Aug 20, 2021
73
6.5
Where to Watch
Summary Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) becomes the first woman of color named Chair of the English department at Pembroke University in this dramedy series written by Amanda Peet.
Created By: Amanda Peet, Annie Julia Wyman
Where to Watch
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 36 Critic Reviews
73
78% Positive
28 Reviews
28 Reviews
22% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 36 Critic Reviews
73
78% Positive
28 Reviews
28 Reviews
22% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Carganilla's blasé exposition of juvenile sociopathology may even be the finest performance of the whole cast, which is saying something: Oh, Duplass, Taylor and Balaban all are outstanding as they bounce from pratfalls to Chaucer jokes to poignant meditations on adult diapers and other detritus of old age. College, when I was there, wasn't nearly this funny.
What makes “The Chair” worth watching is Oh.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 34 User Ratings
6.5
68% Positive
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
18% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
15% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 34 User Ratings
6.5
68% Positive
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
18% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
15% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
The Chair was a nice surprise for me. While the previews gave me the impression of being more 'woke', ticking the typical boxes and the rest, thankfully this was more human with politics revealing character. Sandra Oh plays a newly-elected chair of Pembroke University, and it is a big deal. She oversees quite a crew with a trio of cantankerous older professors (Balaban, Taylor and Crawford), a young and up-and-coming professor (Mensah)and of course, the love-interest, academic messed-up-prof played by Jay Duplass. On top of that, Oh's Ji-Yoon Kim is a single mother managing a plucky, wise and yet equally difficult adopted daughter. The first episode, you might think, oh no, Cliché-ville, next stop. Duplass's Bill Dobson is too Buster Keaton-drunken mess with a series of vaudeville accidents. Alas, we learn he is a widower. Okay, we can forgive him and when the series gets going, his little academic faux-pas during a lecture - conveniently captured by students with smartphones - lands him in a mess dealing with generation participation-trophy. The faculty politics were captured well here and provided for a great deal of sympathy. Academia is cutthroat and with identity politics the new gauntlet, The Chair actually sympathizes more with the professors dealing with the overly-triggered students. I admired this about the show. The Chair was written and directed to perfectly convey the chaos on campus while givings some rather poignant moments between Oh and Duplass. At the same time, there is a lot here and in six thirty minute episodes, there were moments I wished we could have spent more time with the other characters. Holland Taylor's Joan Hambling offered that perfect balance of being both vulnerable and wry. I wanted to get to know her more. The same with Balaban's Prof. Rentz and Mensah's Yaz McKay. The show offered some good moments, and I wondered why the creator (Amanda Peet here... cool...) and writers weren't writing hour-long episodes to flesh-out these roles. And while the Pembroke students here are basically the angry pitch-fork mob, it would have been nice to have been offered some humanity or at least a lesson for them and their bloodthirsty drive to cancel people and have them fired. The Chair navigates some interesting territory, and perhaps avoiding some depth helps it stay in that comfortable place of seriously light. Overall, a pleasant way to cap off a weekend.
Report
In its finest moments, The Chair is a workplace farce doled out in tidy 30-minute increments. ... The Chair’s greatest strength is in where it eventually lands: with an accurate, if heightened, sometimes satirical portrayal of what it’s actually like to chair a department (at least from my experience doing so at a private research university).
In addition to Oh's charms, "Chair" is a darkly funny satire, skewering aspects of modern higher education with veritable glee. The characters are sharply written and feel real and grounded, even as the events surrounding them become more crazed.
“The Chair” has a lot it wants to address — gender dynamics in academia, cross-cultural adoption, grief and self-destruction, white privilege, wokeness and cancel culture — and it’s probably too much for a six-episode, half-hour show that’s also a romantic comedy. ... To its credit, “The Chair” offers no easy answers. It’s more interested in exploring the complexities of transgression and the multitude of reactions than in villainizing or lionizing the individuals involved.
One of several refreshing qualities in The Chair is that it puts the ostensible outsider immediately in a position of authority. The question for Dr Kim is not how she’ll gain power, but how she’ll wield it. ... But if anything lets The Chair down it’s that it rounds off too many of its sharp edges.
The Chair slowly shifts from being an intriguing story about a groundbreaking woman to a sadly predictable one about a tiresome man.
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
Report
Production Company:
- BLB Media
- Netflix Studios
- Netflix
Initial Release Date: Aug 20, 2021
Number of seasons: 1 Season
Rating: TV-MA
Awards
Satellite Awards
• 3 Nominations
AARP Movies for Grownups Awards
• 2 Nominations
Women Film Critics Circle Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
