Abbott Elementary Review

Quinta Brunson named Abbott Elementary after her own sixth-grade teacher and drew it from her mother's four decades in Philadelphia classrooms, and it shows in every detail: the broken supply closet, the grant that never arrives, the principal more interested in her social media than her budget. The mockumentary form is borrowed from The Office, but the point of view is new. These are people doing a hard, underpaid job well, and the comedy comes from how much they care rather than how little.

The ensemble is its great asset. Brunson's Janine is all nervous optimism, Tyler James Williams turns Gregory's deadpan into a running joke of its own, Janelle James makes the principal Ava a monument to vanity, and Lisa Ann Walter and Sheryl Lee Ralph play the veterans as the school's real authority. Ralph and Brunson have both won Emmys for their performances, and the writing has one too. Critics have been close to unanimous since the first season, and the second and fourth are held up as network comedy at its best.

The reservations are small. The Janine and Gregory romance runs long, a few episodes lean on formula, and the look is the plain, functional look of the genre. None of it dents a comedy this consistent.