The Teacher Series 3 brings Victoria Hamilton (The Trick) to the fore, now we’re back in The Teacherverse, and there’s controversy abound…
As Helen Simpson, she’s got a promotion at school to Head of Drama, does this mean she’ll transcend to superhero, and forget about her original job, like Doctor Strange? I mean, do you ever wonder if he misses doing surgery? And did he let his medical practitioner certificate lapse?
The school looks ridiculously posh. I’m sure they’ve filmed at a castle, instead. The staff room is crazy-echoey for a typical staff room, too.
Anyhoo, in the classroom, pupil Daphne (Ellis Jupiter) has become a ‘they’, whatever that is, and has renamed herself ‘Dee’, so when teach refers to her as Daphne, she’s accused of “dead-naming” her. Ugh… let’s get this straight. There’s no such thing as a ‘trans child’. You simply can’t legally have the operation until you’re 18, so that’ll take place AFTER you’ve left school, and then you can do whatever you want. That’s fine. But while you’re under that threshold, you can only be as nature intended, and there’s no such thing as “non-binary”. How did this pronouns bullshit ever get into schools? Oh yes, social media…
Fair play to Helen, though. She does play along with this nonsense in order to not upset the applecart, whereas the trailer made it look like she was the devil incarnate, and Cressida (Alice Grant) winding her up about it all, is put in her place.
However, when it comes to Helen’s son, Sam (Olly Rhodes), being being hassled at school for being gay. My school would stamp that shit right out. There was a lad in my class, 40 years ago, who hadn’t openly come out, but we knew, and everyone was fine with it. Where did things fall with Gen Z? One minute they’re pretending to be inclusive, the next they’re all slagging each other off behind their backs.
Ultimately, though, as the kids moan about how A Midsummer Night’s Dream is rather on the sexist side in the 21st Century, when it comes to social media, and Cressida winding her up, in reality, if you have a situation like that, you’d bring it to the Head’s attention. Let them deal with it. But no, this is TV, so they’ll let things ramble out of control. That’s the rule.
Still, without giving spoilers, it does all lead to a far better-structure opener for The Teacher Series 3, than most Channel 5 multi-part dramas I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m actually looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
I have had access to the remaining episodes prior to broadcast, but often, after watching the opener beforehand, so I can begin my review, I prefer to watch the remainder live, and see what others are saying online as it pans out.
Thanks to our friends and Channel 5 for the screener prior to broadcast.
The Teacher Series 3 continues tomorrow on Channel 5 at 9pm, and each night until Thursday. I’ll update this review after each broadcast.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
If you miss it when broadcast, you can watch the each episode after broadcast on My5.
Creators: Mike Benson, Barunka O’Shaughnessy
Music: Steve Lynch
Cast:
Helen Simpson: Victoria Hamilton
Cressida Bancroft: Alice Grant
Dee Rainford-Thomas: Ellis Jupiter
Sam Simpson: Olly Rhodes
Leo Dalton: Shak Benjamin
Tessa Stewart: Rochenda Sandall
Miles Crawford: Malek Alkoni
Sebastian Blake: Peter Ash
Simon Cookson: Navin Chowdhry
Terry Simpson: Steve Edge
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.