A.P. Bio is back: weirder, wilder and wronger than ever

Always respect your teacher. Unless his name is Jack Griffin. 

For your own safety – and potential criminal record – Whitlock High’s advanced placement biology teacher is not a man you want as a role model, or, for that matter, a teacher. 

Jack doesn’t want to be here. Where he wanted to be was doing his dream job as the head of Stanford’s philosophy department. Instead, he’s teaching – or rather, not teaching – a bunch of teenage boffins in his childhood hometown of Toledo.  

But Jack is a resourceful guy, and he’s quickly figured out that his class full of mega-brains are an excellent think tank and workforce for his outrageous plots and petty vendettas.

“Petty revenge schemes”

With a premise that AV Club described as “A**hole teacher weaponizes high school students in petty revenge schemes against academic rival”, A.P. Bio quickly won fans over with its gift for getting oh-so-wrong so very right. 

A.P. Bio‘s Season 3 has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Decider hailing it as “tremendous… an outrageous tsunami of weird, wonderful comedy… one of the flat-out funniest shows on television.”

Pompous, abrasive, and abusive, Jack is played by Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Dennis Reynolds), who is also an exec producer and directs episode 4 this season. 

Emmy winner Patton Oswalt (Young Adult, Veep) is the perpetually trying-too-hard-and-still-failing Principal Durbin, while Emmy-winning SNL writer Paula Pell is the deranged school secretary Helen – “full-stop the funniest part of the whole dang show,” according to Collider. 

They’re matched by a student cast AV Club hails as “very funny young performers to keep an eye on in the years to come.”

Season 3 shenanigans

In Season 3, Helen joins Jack’s class as a student in a bid to complete her high school diploma. This season also marks a shift in the teacher/student dynamic (perhaps better known as Stockholm Syndrome). After two seasons’ worth of training in BS and criminality, the class is finally onto Jack…

A.P. Bio’s exec producers include SNL alumni and multiple Emmy winners Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers, and Michael Shoemaker. Series creator Michael Patrick O’Brien has five Emmy nominations for his writing on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and directors this season include Emmy winner Osmany Rodriguez (SNL, The Last Man On Earth) and Richie Keen (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

The show’s move from NBC to its streaming service, Peacock, means a little more freedom for the series’ writers, so expect things to get even more loony, and perhaps a touch more adult. Just not “adult” as in “grown-up”, of course. 

“Guffaw-inducing jokes, a lovable ensemble, and genuinely interesting visuals (I cannot stress enough how good the cinematography is) make this one of the best comedies on TV right now,” says Collider, while Indiewire reviewer Mike Travers calls the show “must-see TV,” adding, “I wish there were 50 more episodes of A.P. Bio to enjoy, and isn’t that the true measure of a sitcom?”