Those Who Can't
Those Who Can't is an American sitcom that premiered February 11, 2016 on truTV. On December 1, 2015, the show was renewed for a second season before the first season aired. The pre-launch renewal is a first for the cable net, which ordered 12 episodes for the second season. On January 5, 2017, truTV renewed the series for a third season of 13 episodes, which began airing on January 14, 2019. The series was canceled on April 24, 2019. On December 1, 2020, all three seasons of "Those Who Can't" became available for  viewing on the streaming service HBO Max. About. "Those Who Can't" is a half-hour sitcom set in Denver, Colorado. The show follows three dysfunctional teachers, played by show creators Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl and Ben Roy of the Denver-based comedy trio 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. The show is set in the fictional "Smoot High School", named after the Smoot-Hawley  Tariff Act. The show was originally set up for Amazon Studios who paid $50,000 to shoot the pilot. Amazon gave it a script order for 6 more episodes but ultimately did not order it to series. The show was acquired by truTV as their first-ever full-length scripted comedy and was ordered with 10-episodes. The acquisition was part of truTV's comedy-driven “Way More Fun” programming initiative. 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. The show holds a TV-MA rating due to language and sexually suggestive humor. Its title is a reference to the George Bernard Shaw idiom "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Locations. Van Nuys High School is used as a stand-in  for exterior shots of Smoot High. Episodes. Series overview. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Reception. Critical response. For the first season, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported a 40% approval rating with an average rating of 5.9/10, based on 10 reviews, with a mixed response from critics: Allison Shoemaker from The A.V. Club gave season 1 a rating "B+", writing: "Cayton-Holland, Orvedahl, and Roy seem to be having the time of their lives, and it's almost impossible to watch people having that much fun without getting in the spirit of things.", while Mark A. Perigard from the American daily newspaper  Boston Herald rated the show a "D", reporting: "Watching Those Who Can't is like being stuck in Saturday detention. It feels like forever.". Metacritic graded the series a weighted average rating of 57 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".