‘A.P. Bio’ Renewed For Season 2; Will There Be More Jack-Durbin Scenes?

NBC has picked up its midseason comedy series “A. P. Bio” for Season 2.

Though the Mike O’Brien-created series got a major push from NBC with two special previews, including one after the Closing Ceremony of the PyeongChang Olympics, “A.P. Bio” has not been a breakout ratings performer for the network. According to Entertainment Weekly, the series has been averaging 3.7 million total viewers and a 1.2 in the 18-49 demographic when factoring in seven days of ratings.

But despite its soft ratings, “A.P. Bio” has been relatively well received by critics and has attracted highly educated audiences. TVLine noted that NBC touts “A.P. Bio” as having “one of the most highly educated audiences” on broadcast TV, ranking third among adults aged 18-49 with four or more years of college.

Executive-produced by O’Brien, Seth Meyers, Lorne Michaels, Andrew Singer, and Michael Shoemaker, “A.P. Bio” follows Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton), a disgraced Harvard philosophy scholar who goes back to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, to teach advanced-placement biology. Patton Oswalt co-stars as weak-willed principal Ralph Durbin, with Lyric Lewis, Mary Sohn, and Jean Villepique playing Jack’s fellow teachers Stef, Mary, and Michelle, respectively.

Though Howerton and Oswalt have great onscreen chemistry, their characters only had few scenes together in the first season of the series. When asked if they’re hoping to dive deeper into that dynamic in Season 2, Oswalt told Entertainment Weekly: “I want to be very careful with that dynamic. The scenes with Glenn are always so amazing, but if we get greedy and start doing it inorganically, then it will ruin it.”

“What works about the scenes are that Jack does not want to be with Durbin. But if there’s a reason that he has to be and absolutely can’t get out of it, that makes the comedy that much better,” Oswalt explained. “So yeah, obviously, you want a lot of stuff with them, but you’ve got to keep telling yourself, ‘Don’t get greedy with this,’ because it’s very easy to want to grab too much of it.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the dangers of how some shows end up jumping the shark,” Howerton added. “[If we’re like] ‘Oh, people love that, so we’ll just do that all the time.’ You’re not really getting a well-balanced meal. ‘Everyone loves cake, so we’ll feed them nothing but cake!’ And then everyone gets sick and they’re like, ‘I thought I loved cake.’”

Villepique, meanwhile, wants to have more scenes with the young actors who play the students. “Hopefully, if we get a Season 2, we’ll get to be in the classroom [more], because the students are so wonderful and brilliant actors,” Villepique previously told TVLine.

Will you watch Season 2 of “A.P. Bio”? Let us know in the comments section below!