THE CHAIR
After Netflix debuted THE CHAIR (trailer here), a new series starring Sandra Oh as the freshly appointed chair of a college English department, I checked in with my older brother, a professor himself, to see if he had checked it out. His response: “Yah already binged it / It’s good.” With that enthusiastic stamp of approval, I dove in and can confidently confirm that it is good. Oh’s character, Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim, must course-correct her spiraling department at the fictional Pembroke University while caring for her daughter and navigating a maybe-romance with a fellow professor. The show, co-created by Amanda Peet and Harvard Ph.D-turned-screenwriter Annie Julia Wyman, touches on topical themes around campus politics, generational conflict, and bias inside purportedly progressive spaces, but it primarily operates as a workplace-slash-romantic comedy. Charming as ever, Oh anchors the show both comedically and emotionally, convincingly portraying a person trying her hardest to push the people around her forward for the better.
—Nolan Russell, Executive Assistant
