TELEVISION REVIEWS “Schooled” Series premiere tonight at 8:31 on ABC. Grade: B “Fam” Series premiere tomorrow at 9:30 on CBS. Grade: C+ New TV is here. That doesn’t mean you have to like it. Here are two new network sitcoms looking to fill your valuable time. ABC’s “Schooled” has a leg up as a spinoff from “The Goldbergs,” debuting right after that series. If you watch the first, you’re already familiar with many of the characters, though you don’t need any prior knowledge. “Schooled” shifts the spotlight from the ’80s to the ’90s and a favorite recurring character — Lainey Lewis (AJ Michalka). Lainey’s dream of becoming the biggest rock star have been pretty much dashed. She even gets dropped from a Chili’s jingle. Then she sees an ad for a music teacher at her old high school and figures this is her meal ticket. “I work well with children, probably,” she tells Principal Glascott (Tim Meadows). He rightly wants to show her the door until one of the Goldbergs intervenes in a funny cameo. “Is it possible to get the whole year’s salary in one lump sum?” Lainey wonders. She is challenged by a student who wants music more relevant than doo-wop. To get her to participate, Lainey isn’t above blackmail. Elsewhere, Coach (Bryan Callen) has his hands full with a rising star who emulates Michael Jordan. The use of R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” in a running riff is horrific in light of the revelations of Lifetime’s recent documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly,” but this was filmed months ago. “To be a great teacher you have to be a great human. Clearly that’s what I am,” Lainey decides. The grade is out on that, but “Schooled” at its goofiest recognizes the value of teachers. ABC only made the pilot available for review, so one can only wonder how the show will introduce its other remaining regular, “Jane the Virgin’s” Brett Dier — the not-so-dead Michael — as the newest teacher, named Charlie Brown. While “Schooled” is silly, CBS’ “Fam” is exhausting. Clem (Nina Dobrev, “The Vampire Diaries”) is hiding a secret from her new fiance, Nick (Tone Bell, “Disjointed”), and his adorable if pompous parents, Walt (Brian Stokes Mitchell, “The Path”) and Rose (Sheryl Lee Ralph, “Claws”). Her father, homicide detective Freddy (Gary Cole, “Veep”), isn’t dead, he’s just a horrible person she’d like to forget about. That deception is blown up when her 16-year-old half-sister, Shannon (Odessa Adlon, “Nashville”), breaks into the apartment she shares with Nick. She just needs a place to crash while her boyfriend sells a pound of weed. As to how Shannon managed to leave school without their father noticing, Shannon says, “I keep telling him I’m on Christmas break. He keeps not caring about my life.” Dad remains as much of a nightmare as Clem remembers, so she makes Shannon her responsibility. Clem is an event planner at an art museum; Nick is an associate professor of world literature at NYU. Neither one is ready to take on a high school dropout whose next stop will probably be an appearance on “Cops.” The first three episodes CBS provided find Clem trying to plan her wedding while Shannon and her dad up-end her middle-class life. Adlon brings a surly, subversive charm to her scenes, and Bell is endearing in the straightman role. It’s not enough. If your attention wanders during “Fam,” and it surely will, study Clem and Nick’s apartment and ask if it’s Jerry’s apartment from “Seinfeld,” remodeled and redressed with, of all things, a piano. As for that series title, it’s a nod to selfie-crazed teen Shannon, who claims no one says family anymore — it’s just fam. Here’s something she would understand. “Fam” is kinda terr.<doc-sep>The Goldberg‘s spinoff Schooled has been somewhat of a work in progress. Last year, ABC aired an episode in The Goldberg‘s timeslot called “The Goldbergs: 1990-Something,” which turned out to be the spin-off pilot the network already passed on. While potential was there, the Tim Meadows/Bryan Callen-led pitch felt flat and half-cooked with nothing tangible tethering it to its predecessor. Tonight, school is back in session with AJ Michalka joining the cast for a 13-episode first season. The series has been retooled to include the Goldbergs actress Michalka, while Nia Long, who played Principal Glascott’s sister in the original pilot, has been removed (Long is now a series regular on NCIS: L.A.). Schooled will follow the teachers of William Penn Academy led by Meadows’ Principal Glascott, Callen’s Coach Mellor and Michalka’s Lainey Lewis (Barry Goldberg’s girlfriend) who, despite their idiosyncrasies and bizarre personal lives, build relationships and become mentors to their students. Here are all the cast spoilers you need to know ahead of tonight’s 8:30/7:30c premiere. William Penn Academy's newest music teacher definitely marches to the beat of her own drum. #Schooled premieres TOMORROW at 8:30|7:30c on ABC! pic.twitter.com/3bSp9rL4KX — Schooled (@SchooledABC) January 8, 2019 On The Goldbergs, Lainey was best friend to Erica Goldberg (Hayley Orrantia) and girlfriend to Barry (Troy Gentile). She was a recurring character in Seasons 1 and 2 before being promoted to series regular for Seasons 3 and 4. Though Barry and Lainey broke up at the end of the fourth season, the two later became engaged after she dropped out of college. IMDB doesn’t list Gentile for any Schooled episodes as of yet. Is Barry out of the picture? We’ll likely find out the answer to that tonight. ABC’s description for the first episode tells us, “It’s 1990-something, and since Lainey still hasn’t achieved rock ‘n’ roll greatness, she returns to William Penn Academy as the new music teacher. Lainey has a hard time adjusting to being an authority figure, but she realizes she might not be so bad at it when she discovers a kindred spirit in Principal Glascott’s niece, Felicia.” Michalka can also be seen in movies like Super 8 and The Lovely Bones. Tim Meadows as Principal Glascott Jonathan “Andre” Glascott was a teacher and guidance counselor at William Penn who also delivered pizza and gave guitar lessons for extra money. He now serves as the school’s principal, who will probably be psyched that he no longer has to deal with Beverly Goldberg anymore (…or will he? ). Meadows starred on Saturday Night Live from 1991-2000, and can also be seen in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Ladies Man, and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Bryan Callen as Coach Mellor Rick Mellor is the high school’s no-nonsense gym teacher and coach who’s also had multiple run-ins with smother Beverly Goldberg. Mellor will continue being an unlikely (and mostly unfit) mentor to the students at William Penn. Callen has also appeared on How I Met Your Mother, 7th Heaven, and the movie The Hangover. Brett Dier as C.B. Jane the Virgin‘s Brett Dier plays the young, enthusiastic super-teacher Charlie Brown (or “C.B.” for short—prepare yourself for the onslaught of Peanuts jokes). Besides Jane, he is best known for playing Luke Matheson on Pretty Little Liars and its offshoot, Ravenswood. Rachel Crow as Felicia Winston Crow, a former X-Factor contestant, stars as Felicia, Principal Glascott’s niece who forms a special bond with Lainey. The Goldbergs, now in its sixth season, will air throughout the rest of the 2018-2019 TV season. It’s unclear if it will return next year, though The Hollywood Reporter says it’s possible. Series Creator and Executive Producer Adam Goldberg (the real-life Adam Goldberg) knows how the series will likely end. “The last episode is Adam’s [Sean Giambrone] high school graduation, which marks the end of his childhood,” Goldberg told THR in a 2017 interview. “I’d love to go beyond season six, but it will always be set in the ’80s. We have yet to run out of any videos of mine, and there’s just so much from that decade I love. And I don’t want to set it in the ’90s because I hope that one day that will be the spinoff of some sort.”<doc-sep>A spinoff of “The Goldbergs” debuts on ABC. And Rodrigo Cortés’s horror film “Down a Dark Hall” is available to stream. What’s on TV SCHOOLED 8:30 p.m. on ABC. Adam F. Goldberg trades Toto for Nirvana in this spinoff of “The Goldbergs” — Goldberg’s successful sitcom built partly on nostalgia for the 1980s. In “Schooled,” he and the writer Marc Firek (both creators of the new show) move a decade ahead to the ’90s, where AJ Michalka’s character, Lainey — previously a fashion school dropout with rock singer aspirations — is beginning a job as a teacher at the prep school she once attended. Tim Meadows’s guidance counselor character is now a principal. THE DICTATOR’S PLAYBOOK 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The first episode of PBS’s new documentary series on dictators follows the rise of the North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, who began the Kim dynasty and the Korean War during his reign, from 1945 until he died in 1994. The episode begins with his death, after which, the journalist Jean H. Lee explains, the country was “shocked because they had been raised to think of him as a god; they didn’t know that he was even mortal.” The program pays special attention to the use of fear, violence and propaganda by several dictators and draws parallels among their tactics; later episodes cover Benito Mussolini, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and others.<doc-sep>
Lainey Lewis, consider yourself Schooled on the ABC’s of being a good teacher. Wednesday’s premiere of the ’90s-set Goldbergs spinoff stars AJ Michalka as Barry Goldberg’s ex-fiancée, who’s gone from college dropout/wannabe rock star to music teacher at her old high school William Penn Academy. (The career detour comes courtesy of credit card debt and broken dreams.) Of course, Lainey doesn’t have the experience or credentials to be an educator, but she does have Beverly Goldberg on her side. The smother basically pesters Principal Glascott (The Goldbergs‘ Tim Meadows) into giving Lainey the job. At first, the new faculty member is more concerned with getting paid — she asks if she can get her whole year’s salary in one lump sum — and still acts like a student, which might explain why Coach Mellor (The Goldbergs‘ Bryan Callen) can’t seem to grasp that she graduated a while ago. But being young and hip, Lainey can relate to her students, in particular Glascott’s troubled niece Felicia (Fred: The Show‘s Rachel Crow), who is a fellow child of divorce. The two get off to a rocky start when Felicia mouths back and Lainey blackmails her into performing in the school concert after she catches the girl with Zima. (Ah, the ’90s.) But after a heart-to-heart with Coach Mellor, Lainey is the one who learns a lesson about following her heart as a teacher and then truly bonds with Felicia. She even earns Glascott’s approval after he sees how much the students are enjoying the grunge-inspired concert. Elsewhere, Coach Mellor benches his star basketball player Matty for not being a team player — darn that free-flying superstar Michael Jordan! — but eventually gets through to the young athlete. Matty, in turn, gets Mellor to accept change, like longer, looser basketball shorts. And after being impressed by Matty’s arm while playing HORSE, Mellor suggests the boy try out for football. (Matty is based on Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, who went to William Penn Charter School in real life.) Popular on TVLine As for what the Goldbergs clan is up to in the future, we don’t get a lot of hints. But a fun throwaway gag reveals that classmate Johnny Atkins is now the school janitor, which feels right. Note: Brett Dier (Jane the Virgin), who does not appear in the premiere, joins the series-regular cast in a future episode as the “enthusiastic super-teacher” Charlie Brown (aka CB). What did you think of the Schooled premiere? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments to back up your pick!