The Chair is an American comedy-drama streaming television series. The series was released on Netflix on August 20, 2021. The Chair series will transport viewers into the hilarious high-pressured world of a failing university English department. Killing Eve’s Sandra plays the woman tasked with trying to save a real sinking ship.
Genre:
- Comedy-drama
Created by:
- Amanda Peet & Annie Julia Wyman
Music by
- Stephanie Economou
Country of origin
- United States
Original language
- English
No. of seasons
- 1
No. of episodes
- 6
Production
- Executive producers
- Amanda Peet
- David Benioff
- B. Weiss
- Bernie Caulfield
- Daniel Gray Longino
- Sandra Oh
Producers
- Tyler Romary
- Hameed Shaukat
Cinematography
- Jim Frohna
Editors
- Jay Deuby
- Stacy Moon
Running time
- 30 minutes
Production companies
- BLB
- Nice work Ravelli
Distributor
- Netflix
The plot
The Chair is a “dramedy” a combination of drama and comedy. The series follows Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) as she navigates her new role as the chair of a failing English department at the prestigious Pembroke University. Ji-Yoon faces plenty of challenges and some high expectations because she’s the first woman to lead up the department and one of the few staff members of color at the university. But what saves her is her wittiness, no-nonsense Professor Joan Hambling (Holland Taylor), who’s her close friend helps her to meet the dizzying demands of her new role. The Chair is called a comedy-drama, with the two genres allowing for both an exploration of social issues surrounding race and gender, as well as a spectacular from time to time. Created by Amanda Peet, this mini-series is produced by former Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss. Oh, will also take an executive producer credit.
Cast
- Sandra Oh plays Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim: Ji-Yoon is the first woman to become Chair of Pembroke University’s ailing English department. The university sees a major decline in student sign-ups. She struggles as no one takes her idea seriously ko like the elderly white male faculty.
- Jay Duplass plays Professor Bill Dobson: Bill is an English professor at Pembroke University. He is the one who stepped down as chair after the death of his wife. Then he becomes an unreliable and unpredictable character as he is not being able to process his grief. He makes an offensive gesture during one of his lectures which is enough to strike a mass outrage among his students.
- Holland Taylor plays Professor Joan Hambling: Joan’s character is of senior members of the department. Joan before had a good relationship with Ji-Yoon. But son we see their relationship starts to fall when she becomes Chair of the department and starts to have less time for Joan.
- Nana Mensah plays Professor Yaz McKay: Yaz is one of the newest members of Pembroke’s English faculty. We see that her classes have quickly heated up ahead as being the most popular.
- Bob Balaban plays Professor Elliot Rentz: Rentz is a senior member of Pembroke’s English department. We see that his classes are struggling with low enrolment.
- David Morse plays Dean Paul Larson: Paul is the Dean of Pembroke University. Ji-Yoon reports him as being in the new position as Chair of the English department.
- Everly Carganilla plays Ju-Hee ‘Ju Ju’ Kim: JuJu is the adoptive daughter of Ji-Yoon, named after her late mother.
- Ron Crawford plays Professor McHale: McHale is the oldest member of Pembroke’s English department.
- Mallory Low plays Lila: Lila is a Ph.D. student. She works with Professor Bill Dobson.
- Ella Rubin plays Dafna: Dafna is a Pembroke student who wants intent the attention of Professor Bill Dobson.
- David Duchovny plays Himself: David Duchovny plays himself in The Chair, a celebrity speaker.
The Chair release date
There are six episodes and all six episodes of “The Chair” is already available to binge-watch on Netflix since Friday 20th August 2021.
