Those Who Can't
| Those Who Can't | |
|---|---|
| Created by |
Adam Cayton-Holland Andrew Ovredahl Ben Roy |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 18 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
|
| Location(s) | Denver, Colorado[1] |
| Running time | 30 minutes (including commercials) |
| Release | |
| Original network | truTV (United States) |
| Picture format | 1080i (HDTV) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | February 11, 2016[2] – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Those Who Can't is an American cable television series that premiered February 11, 2016 on truTV.[2] On December 1, 2015, the show was renewed for a second season before the first season aired.[3] The pre-launch renewal is a first for the cable net, which ordered 13 episodes for the second season.[4]
About
Those Who Can't is a half-hour show, based in Denver, Colorado,[1] that follows three dysfunctional teachers, played by show creators Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl and Ben Roy of the Denver-based comedy troupe The Grawlix. More inept than the kids they teach, they're out to beat the system as they struggle to survive each day on their own terms. Maria Thayer stars as the school librarian with a bubbling passion for life.[5]
The show was originally set up for Amazon Studios[6] who paid $50,000 to shoot the pilot.[1] Amazon ordered six more episodes, but they never aired.[2] The show was acquired by truTV[6] as their first-ever full-length scripted comedy and was ordered with 10-episodes.[7] The acquisition was part of truTV's comedy-driven “Way More Fun” programming initiative.[6] When the show was first created, Cayton-Holland stated they wrote the character of Abbey Logan (originally played by comedian Nikki Glaser), the high-school librarian, as the love interest. Orvedahl stated that in the pilot, Abbey "just sort of lived in the library and served only to flirt with Adam’s character.” The character and role was revised for the shows run at truTV and Abbey is stated to have become "one of the gang" with all the characters now on equal footing.[2]
The show holds a TV-MA rating due to language and suggestive humor.
Cast
Main
- Adam Cayton-Holland as Loren Payton.[8] A Spanish teacher who claims to be an expert Spanish speaker but in truth is barely literate, Loren is a spoiled and self-absorbed narcissist who grew up with wealthy parents.
- Andrew Orvedahl as Andy Fairbell.[8] A gym teacher/volleyball coach/health teacher, Andy has a good heart but is largely naive about social interaction and often ends up on the receiving end of abuse from others as a result.
- Ben Roy as Billy Shoemaker.[8] Former high school punk rock fanboy with tattooed arms that he hides underneath his long sleeved dress shirt (which he rolls up whenever he gets aggressive). Married with a son, he struggles to reconcile his past as an anti-establishment troublemaker who spent several years following around his favorite punk band as a roadie, with his adult life as a history teacher and responsible family man.
- Maria Thayer as Abbey Logan.[8] The school librarian, who serves as the voice of reason against the other main cast and their schemes but is shown to be just as depraved as the others when pushed.
- Rory Scovel as Principal Geoffrey Quinn. The naive school principal, who is just as incompetent as the teaching staff.
Guest
Guest stars who appeared in Season 1 include Sarah Michelle Gellar, Susie Essman, T.J. Miller, Peter Stormare, Mark Hoppus and Michael Madsen.[5]
Episodes
Season 1 (2016)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The Boys Are Coming Together" | Evan Nix & Adam Nix | Adam Cayton-Holland & Andrew Orvedahl & Ben Roy | February 11, 2016 | 0.444[9] |
| High school teachers Loren Payton, Andy Fairbell, and Billy Shoemaker are being tormented by one of the school's football players, who takes sadistic glee in terrorizing his teachers. To get back at him, they conspire to plant drugs in his locker. After a madcap quest to obtain them, they find their scheme failed because the football player's dad bribed the school's principal into allowing his son to go unpunished. Upset that her friends' plan failed, librarian Abby Logan vandalizes the football player's new car with drawings of male genitals. | ||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Oof, Nut City" | Fred Goss | Andrew Orvedahl | February 11, 2016 | 0.317[9] |
| Andy, Loren, and Billy try to help get a student re-elected student body president after he is impeached by his fellow classmates after it is revealed that the Canadian born student lied about being born in the United States. However, the plan backfires as the student becomes drunk with the power that comes with being popular. | ||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Lady and the Skamp" | Peter Lauer | Ben Roy | February 18, 2016 | 0.351[10] |
|
When faulty gym equipment puts Andy into the hospital and he is ordered to continue teaching in spite of his injuries, the teacher's union goes on strike to protest. While Abby and Billy feud over who will be the spokesman of the group, Loren uses the break from teaching to get drunk and celebrate not working, which threatens the entire strike when the media begins covering it. Special Guest: Susie Essman | ||||||
| 4 | 4 | "The Fairbell Tape" | Roger Kumble | Dean Lorey | February 25, 2016 | 0.293[11] |
|
The PTA, led by their leader Gwen Stephanie (Sarah Michelle Gellar), get vending machines banned from the school and the teacher's lounge. While Abby schemes to get dirt on Gwen to blackmail her into restoring the vending machines to the school, Loren becomes involved in the underground candy black market and is recruited by his former home economics teacher into making rock candy for her underground candy selling group. Meanwhile, Andy comes out as sexually inexperienced/confused to Billy when he is forced to teach sex ed to the students, and reveals his "wank tape" to Billy: a surrealistic compilation of random images which he uses to masturbate to. The tape produces a hypnotic euphoric sexual effect up those who watch it, leading to Gwen (upon watching it) to restore the vending machines, but not before raping Andy, who proclaims himself gay after the incident. Special Guest: Sarah Michelle Gellar | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Of Lice and Men" | Fred Goss | Adam Cayton-Holland | March 3, 2016 | 0.384[12] |
|
Loren brings a used couch to the teacher's lounge, inadvertently triggering a lice infestation. Because of his own experiences having lice as a kid, Loren is put in charge of cleansing the school of lice and promptly goes drunk with power, declaring a lock-down. Abby uses the lockdown to terrorize the popular kids to hang out with her as friends while Andy gets trapped in the air vents, when he has a panic attack over the prospect of being infected with lice. Special Guest: Susie Essman | ||||||
| 6 | 6 | "What's Eating Uncle Jake?" | Evan Nix & Adam Nix | Kate Heckman & Ian McLees | March 10, 2016 | 0.203[13] |
| The school's volleyball team reaches the state finals, which leads to the school's PTA suspending Andy as coach so they replace him with a more famous coach that they think will have a better chance at winning the big game. In response, the team's star player quits the team in protest of Andy's demotion, which causes Andy to become persona non grata due to everyone thinking that he convinced the player to quit to spite the school (which he did not). Meanwhile, Billy and Abby scheme to recruit one of Billy's friends (TJ Miller) to run the concession stand selling pizza slices, in order to get a cut of the profits. | ||||||
| 7 | 7 | "For Whom the Bell's Toll" | Peter Lauer | Rodney Barnes | March 24, 2016 | 0.356[14] |
|
The teachers go into panic when the school board sends a representative to evaluate them for the purpose of selecting one to be fired. After realizing that the inspector plans on firing him, Billy desperately tries to manipulate Loren into a scenario where he'll get fired instead. Andy meanwhile, tired of being picked on, is given a puppet by the drama teacher (Mary Lynn Rajskub) to help him articulae his anger, with nasty results. | ||||||
| 8 | 8 | "Wet Dreams May Come" | Evan Nix & Adam Nix | Joey Slamon | March 31, 2016 | 0.343[15] |
| Billy begins to have erotic dreams of himself having sex with Loren, which cause him to seek out help from the school's drama teacher (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who tells him that the best way to stop the dreams is to proposition Loren. Meanwhile, a local police officer Michael Madsen has been assigned to the school for a classified investigation. Billy and Abby desperately seek to find out what the police officer is investigating, while Andy befriends the police officer and discovers that the officer is actually blind and simply pretending to be a cop so he can hang out at the school. | ||||||
| 9 | 9 | "K-Pop Goes the Weasel" | Bobcat Goldthwait | Andrew Orvedahl & Joey Slamon | April 7, 2016 | 0.322[16] |
| After Andy, Loren, and Billy receive an anonymous death threat, the three plus Quinn and Abby find themselves locked in the high school and pursued by a masked student. When Abby is found dead, Quinn confronts the killer while the others flee at which point, he discovers that the entire scenario is the work of the senior class and Abby, as their senior prank against the three and was conceived by the football player from the pilot who they framed for drug possession. Watching them on hidden camera making fun of him, Quinn agrees to let the prank continue. However, when Andy turns on Billy and Loren (who were planning on killing Andy because he would "slow them down") and lock them in the gym, where they turn each other before Quinn shows up to stop them only for Andy to stab Quinn when he tries to save the two. | ||||||
| 10 | 10 | "Take a Wonka on the Wild Side" | Bobcat Goldthwait | Adam Cayton-Holland & Ben Roy | April 14, 2016 | 0.309[17] |
Season 2 (2016)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 1 | "Rod Man Out" | Peter Lauer | Andrew Orvedahl | October 6, 2016 | 0.339[18] |
| 12 | 2 | "Foreskin in the Game" | Nancy Hower | Adam Cayton-Holland | October 13, 2016 | 0.239 |
| 13 | 3 | "Plains High School Drifter" | Nancy Hower | Chris Marrs | October 20, 2016 | 0.242 |
| 14 | 4 | "8 Mile High" | Peter Lauer | Adam Cayton-Holland | October 27, 2016 | N/A |
| 15 | 5 | "White Guilt Trip" | Matt Sohn | Ben Roy | November 10, 2016 | N/A |
| 16 | 6 | "The Trial of Geoffrey Quinn" | Bobcat Goldthwait | Andrew Orvedahl & Joey Slamon | November 10, 2016 | N/A |
| 17 | 7 | "Detergent Dawn" | Bobcat Goldthwait | Dean Lorey | November 17, 2016 | TBD |
| 18 | 8 | "A New Dog In The Yard" | Peter Lauer | Ian McLees | November 17, 2016 | TBD |
| 19 | 9 | "Normal Activity"[19] | TBA | TBA | December 1, 2016 | TBD |
| 20 | 10 | "Elect-ile Dysfunction"[19] | TBA | TBA | December 1, 2016 | TBD |
References
- 1 2 3 Wenzel, John (March 3, 2015). ""Those Who Can't," Denver-based sitcom, greenlit by TruTV". Denver Post. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 Logan, Elizabeth (January 20, 2016). "How the Creators of TruTV's Those Who Can't Reconceived Their Female Character". Vulture. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (December 1, 2015). "TruTV Renews 'Those Who Can't' Ahead Of Launch; Orders 'Shady Neighbors' Pilot". Deadline. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- ↑ Wagmeister, Elizabeth (December 1, 2015). "TruTV Renews Comedy 'Those Who Can't,' Puts 3 New Scripted Pilots in Development". Variety. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- 1 2 "About the Show". trutv.com. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- 1 2 3 Weatherby, Taylor (March 3, 2015). "truTV greenlights first full-length scripted comedy, Those Who Can't". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- ↑ Wagmeister, Elizabeth (March 3, 2015). "TruTV Greenlights First Full-Length Scripted Comedy Series". Variety. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 "Those Who Can't Cast". truTV. February 11, 2016. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
- 1 2 Metcalf, Mitch (February 12, 2016). "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 2.11.2016". Showbuzzdaily. Retrieved February 12, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (February 19, 2016). "SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 2.18.2016". Showbuzzdaily. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (February 26, 2016). "UPDATED: SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 2.25.2016". Showbuzzdaily. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (March 4, 2016). "UPDATED: SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 3.3.2016". Showbuzzdaily. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (March 11, 2016). "UPDATED: SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 3.10.2016". Showbuzzdaily. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (March 25, 2016). "UPDATED: SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 3.24.2016". ShowBuzzDaily. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (April 1, 2016). "UPDATED: SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 3.31.2016". ShowBuzzDaily. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (April 8, 2016). "UPDATED: SHOWBUZZDAILY's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 4.7.2016". ShowBuzzDaily. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (April 15, 2016). "Updated: ShowBuzzDaily's Top 150 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 4.14.2016". ShowBuzzDaily. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (October 7, 2016). "ShowbuzzDaily's Top 100 Thursday Cable Originals & Network Finals: 10.6.2016". ShowbuzzDaily. Retrieved October 8, 2016.
- 1 2 "Those Who Can't: Episode Guide". Zap2It. Retrieved November 19, 2016.