In an opening scene of “The Chair,” Ji-Yoon Kim, the title character of one of the most popular series on Netflix, meets with a younger Black professor behind closed doors and urges her to be an agent of change.
“I am the chair of the department,” Kim, played by Sandra Oh, whispers. “Let’s [expletive] shake this place up.”
Kim serves as the first woman and person of color to head the English Department at Pembroke University, a fictional private school. With a stable of aging, reluctant-to-retire professors, shaking the place up proves challenging. Her department is facing declining enrollment, a dwindling budget and looming cuts.
“I feel like someone handed me a ticking time bomb because they wanted to be sure a woman was holding it when it explodes,” Kim says.
Plenty of television shows and movies like "The Paper Chase" and "Animal House" are set on leafy green campuses. But “The Chair” — a dramedy hitting close to home with critics, professors and students — thrives by putting faculty front and center before the camera.
“Usually it tends to be more about the students,” said Angie Han, a television critic with The Hollywood Reporter. “I think 'The Chair' is the rare one that focuses mostly on the professors and academia."
Han graduated from Amherst College, which, she points out, has a similar vibe to the imaginary Pembroke.
“Everything from the buildings to the trees to all of the paintings of old white men in the halls,” Han said, referring to the show’s detailed setting. “And definitely the students feeling very empowered to talk to their professors and try to reason with them, although, thankfully, in my time it did not go the way that it does here.”
In one strand, a beloved professor provokes a student protest after video of him mockingly performing a Nazi salute in class goes viral. The narrative feels ripped from today's headlines or, at least, a Tucker Carlson “Campus Craziness” segment.
The tenor of college life these days seems to make the internal politics of a stuffy, wood-paneled English Department interesting enough for a drama series.
"It's become such a flash point for, 'Let's talk about cancel culture.’ and professors getting in trouble for doing something,” Han said. “I feel like 'The Chair' is coming in at the right time to be part of the conversation."
Critics say a stuffy, wood-paneled English Department serves as an unusual but perfect backdrop for a short series that raises big questions about race, inclusion, free speech and social justice.
“I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this earlier,” said Bob Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at the Newhouse School of Public communications at Syracuse University.
Thompson says few shows have gone into the weeds of academia like “The Chair,” with one exception: a CBS show starring Richard Dreyfuss called “The Education of Max Bickford.”
"It only went one season,” Thompson said. “It almost looks like it was a dress rehearsal for ‘The Chair.’”
A fictional college campus is the ideal place to deal with contemporary issues, Thompson said.
“Academic environments are all about sitting around talking and studying and analyzing the world and who we are and what's going on.”
Not everyone is so glowing in their reviews. Since “The Chair” was released last month, some other professors have taken to Twitter, tapping out bite-size critiques.
“The Chair is a show that invites us to mock older professors, be scared of young students, ignore adjuncts and temporary lecturers, and identify with mediocre middle-aged professors with tenure going through a midlife crisis,” tweeted Moshik Temkin, a historian and fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center.
But so far the show has been overwhelmingly well received on campus, even if its narrative disturbs some professors.
“I started watching it and found it a little triggering,” said Paula Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association and the former dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bridgewater State University.
Krebs binge-watched the show, hitting pause occasionally to gather her thoughts.
“I plowed through but it was a bit close to the bone at times for those of us who have been in English departments,” Krebs said. “What was upsetting to me was actually students recording their professor in class and then using it against the professor. That's the stuff that haunts my nightmares.”
Still, Krebs says she hopes more pop culture focuses on her universe.
“This was an English department where languages were studied and people did get to make speeches about why it’s important to study literature,” she said.
Some students are also raving about “The Chair” with its Aaron Sorkin-esque 30-second speeches.
Abby Richmond, a 21-year-old senior at Columbia, is an English major from Newton. She appreciates the view of what happens behind the scenes.
“In college, you definitely get more of a sense that your professors are, like, real people with personal lives and aspirations and back stories,” she said. “But it's definitely interesting to see it play out like in a Netflix-dramedy-type setting.”
Richmond says the writers glossed over certain complexities of cancel culture on today’s campuses.
“I think they generally represented some truths about university life,” she said. “But I do think they were a little bit simplistic sometimes.”
Still, she is among students and professors who are hoping for a second season of Pembroke University.
GBH News’ Diane Adame contributed to this article.
