The Chair review: Sandra Oh is brilliant in Netflix series depicting ups and downs of academia

After Season 3 of Killing Eve, Sandra Oh returns to screen with Netflix's The Chair. Created by Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman, the affable campus series traverses across an American liberal arts university's English department.

Oh plays Ji-Yoon Kim, the first woman of colour to lead the struggling department. Her recruitment is historical albeit a little late; after all it's 2021. Her first day as chair begins on an ominous note when Dean Paul Larson (David Morse) informs her of slashed budgets and the all-time-low enrolments in classes taken by the department's longest-tenured professors. Then there's the faculty's diversity problem, and a controversy involving one of the most popular professors Bill Dobson (Jon Duplass) that might kill his career along with Ji-Yoon's. The pressure is high, and one can’t help but wonder if she was appointed just to take the fall when things implode in this already crumbling division.

Sandra Oh as Ji-Yoon Kim. Eliza Morse/Netflix

Ji-Yoon is another memorable strong, smart and self-sufficient character that Oh has played after Cristina Yang (in Grey's Anatomy) and Eve Polastri (in Killing Eve). Ji-Hoon has clearly fought hard to create a space for herself in a largely white-dominated field, pushing herself twice as harder as her privileged peers. Even though she's momentarily flustered juggling the mountain of new professional responsibilities and her duties as a single mom, her steely determination helps steer her through troubled waters.

Ju-Ju (Everly Carganilla). Eliza Morse/Netflix

Ji-Yoon's characterisation does not adhere to the usual Asian American stereotypes in pop culture. She's one of the only TV characters that I know of who goes by her Korean name, and not a watered down, anglicised version of it. She's a single mom with an adopted daughter Ju-Ju (Everly Carganilla), and she's a liberal arts professor not a scientist, not an engineer or a doctor. Carganilla is delightfully bright and wicked as Ju-Ju, who is often dismissive of her mother's affection.

Duplass emulates the self-destructive, mourning widower Bill, bringing the right amount of emotionality and comic timing whenever the scene demands it. His grief is almost tangible; he's completely down in the dumps, drowning all his sorrow in alcohol and drugs, no longer caring if his house resembles a pig sty, or if, in a drunken stupor, he's relieving himself in a public place. When his attempt at humour misfires after he gives a Nazi salute in a lecture his pride gets in the way of apologising for his actions and hopes for the student backlash to fizzle out.

Added into the mix, though not entirely necessary, is a romantic dynamic between Ji-Yoon and Bill. Their closeness concerns Ji-Hoon's father, but she's quick to dismiss his concern. Nothing really arises from this, they don't end up together, though it is something the two briefly circle around. In my opinion, the plot would have remained unchanged if their relationship was platonic.

The supporting characters — Joan Hambling (Holland Taylor), Elliot Rentz (Bob Balaban) and the perpetually sleepy and flatulent Professor McHale (Ron Crawford) — bring different shades of humour to the story. With the exception of McHale (he's just there for the fart jokes), they are well-formed, sharply written characters with their own sets of dilemmas and conflicts.

Elliot Rentz (Bob Balaban) and Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah). Eliza Morse/Netflix

I don't know much about the inner workings of American institutions of higher education. But I do know they are populated by overwhelmingly white male academics. A quick scan of any public or private college's faculty list will prove it. Some may claim that a shift has taken place, but let's be honest, it is at a snail's pace. Or entirely performative as is probably the case in The Chair. Besides Ji-Yoon, the only other staff member of colour is Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah). Yaz is brilliant, her classes are the most sought after scholar and teacher in the department after Bill, a fact that invites the jealousy Rentz, whose heydays ended a decade ago. Rentz is uncomfortable to give away his spot to someone significantly younger, and tries to sabotage Yaz's ascension.

The Chair is the only campus drama I know of that exclusively focuses on the faculty, how messed up academia is, how racism, sexism are still very prevalent and deliberately exclude diverse voices. The series encapsulates the hard reality of how colleges and universities, despite being sanctuaries of knowledge, debate, and critical thinking still hold on to age-old structures. From the response to the show that I have read online, The Chair is among the first to properly and accurately represent the academic world on screen.

The Chair is streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer here —