Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Schooled’ On ABC, A ‘90s ‘Goldbergs’ Spinoff Where Lainey Becomes A Teacher

Remember when The Goldbergs was going to get a spinoff called 1990-Something (or something like that)? After a couple of tries, ABC has finally made a series set in the ’90s with Mr. Glascott and Coach Mellor. Only in this version, Lainey Lewis has joined them as a newly-minted music teacher at William Penn. Does this sequel have as many laughs as the show it came from?

SCHOOLED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes from The Goldbergs, with Patton Oswalt’s signature voice over. The voice over then switches to Lainey Lewis (AJ Michalka), who talks about being single and in financial trouble after making a go of it in the music business.

The Gist: It’s 1990-something and Lainey finds that there’s an opening for a music teacher at her alma mater, William Penn Academy. She has no teaching experience and Mr. Glascott (Tim Meadows), who has just been promoted to principal, is reluctant to hire her, until Lainey deploys her secret weapon: Beverly Goldberg (Wendi McLendon-Covey), who browbeats Glascott into giving her the job.

Lainey finds that being a teacher at the high school where you weren’t exactly the world’s best student is a little weird. On her first day, she’s late, calls a kid a “nerd” and can’t wrap her mind around teaching her music class doo wop songs for a school assembly. She especially has problems connecting with a talented student named Felicia (Rachel Crow), who happens to be Glascott’s neice; Felicia pulls all the same tricks Lainey did when she was in school — though Lainey would have never been caught dead with a Zima in her bag.

Meanwhile Coach Mellor (Bryan Callen) finds that he’s having trouble getting Matty (Hunter Doohan), the most talented basketball player he’s ever had, to stop doing monster dunks and play team basketball. Matty pushes back that, with Michael Jordan dominating the NBA, things have changed, including the fact that basketball players don’t wear short shorts anymore. Mellor can’t adjust; he calls the baggy shorts “culottes”. But he wants Matty back on the team, and so do the school’s trustees — led by former Principal Ball (Stephen Tobolowsky). So he plays Matty in HORSE, which includes a shot where Matty throws a football into the basket (more on that in a second).

Our Take: This version of Schooled is Adam F. Goldberg’s second attempt at doing a 1990-something spinoff of The Goldbergs. If you remember a flash-forward episode from last season that featured Meadows, Callen, Crow, and Nia Long as Glascott’s sister, then you’ve seen the original version of the pilot that was not picked up by ABC. Judging by this retooled version, though, the network made the right decision.

Making Glascott and Mellor the centerpiece of the show wasn’t going to work, as talented as Meadows and Callen are. There needed to not only be a younger influence on the show, but a character that has a more recent connection to the school. Goldberg and the show’s co-creator Mark Firek getting Michalka to leave her safe haven as the ’80s version of Lainey on the parent show was a fine move; Michalka is not only funny but is a real-life pop star, which will attract her fans, as well.

Lainey makes a good centerpiece for this show, because her teenage self was a good kid who just was not into school, and now she has to navigate being a teacher, having to connect to kids who are like she was and also listen to people like Glascott and Mellor.

It takes a little bit for the pilot to ramp up to its parent show’s signature combination of high-speed laughs and earnestness, but Goldberg and Firek get there eventually, especially during a talk Mellor has with Lainey about how being a teacher was never his dream but it has become his dream job because he can get through to kids and see them grow and do well. That segment showed us that Schooled has the potential to be as funny as The Goldbergs, even if there will be jokes about using Netscape and watching Friends.

Sex and Skin: Nothing. What, did you expect Lainey to get freaky in this show?

Parting Shot: Glascott joins the mosh pit after he finally agrees that Lainey’s idea to make the doo wop show into a grunge show was a good idea. During the credits, Callen talks to the real Coach Mallor, who talks about encouraging Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (yes, the same Matty in the pilot) to try football.

Sleeper Star: We liked Rachel Crow in the original pilot and we like her here. We’re also looking forward to Brett Dier joining the cast — we’d imagine as a love interest for Lainey.

Most Pilot-y Line: As you’d expect, the ’90s references are obvious. Lainey gets the idea to do a grunge show when she sees Felicia wearing a Nirvana shirt. What, a Mother Love Bone or Soul Asylum shirt wasn’t going to be obvious enough?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Schooled takes a while to get going, but it looks like Michalka can carry this sequel quite well.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Schooled on ABC