Fleur Feeney: English Teacher (FX)

In a sparse year for comedy programming, FX’s English Teacher has provided some much-needed laughs. This out-and-out sitcom created by comedian Brian Jordan Alvarez delivers a high joke count, stellar performances and a sharp picture of the pleasures and challenges of teaching Gen Z.

Alvarez stars as Evan Marquez, a perpetually exasperated English teacher at a high school in a conservative suburb of Austin, Texas. The show opens on him discovering that a parent has lodged a complaint against him for kissing his then-boyfriend in front of his students.

Considering the brief run of a mere eight episodes, English Teacher tackles a broad range of zeitgeisty topics – from gender identity to school shootings to entitled parents to drag. Above all, it expertly illustrates how education has become an increasingly charged and absurd political battlefield with refreshing wit and indiscriminate satire that refuses to slip into the gimmicky, sanctimonious or saccharin.

As someone who has worked a brief stint teaching in secondary schools, I particularly enjoyed the nihilistic and, at times, psychologically torturous portrayal of the digital natives that are the younger half of Gen Z.

Great chemistry, topical jokes and stand out performances make this a laugh-out-loud show.

Honourable mentions go to Abbott Elementary, I Kissed A Girl, Nobody Wants This and Ludwig.

• Fleur Feeney is a content researcher, Broadcast