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Everything We Know About 'The Chair,' Sandra Oh's New Netflix Show

Photo credit: ELIZA MORSE/NETFLIX
Photo credit: ELIZA MORSE/NETFLIX

It feels like an eternity since Sandra Oh was last on our screens in the third season of Killing Eve, but thankfully, the wait for Oh content is almost over. In Netflix's new six-episode dramedy The Chair, she stars as Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim, a professor who's been newly named Chair of the English Department at the fictional Pembroke University, an elite college. She's the first woman ever to take the position, and must also grapple with the challenges of being one of the few people of color on the college's overwhelmingly white, male staff.

Here's a few key things to know about The Chair.

This is Sandra Oh's TV follow-up to Killing Eve.

Given the huge popularity and critical success of Killing Eve, in which Oh plays the title role, you can imagine that she was very selective about her next project. Going off of early reviews, The Chair allows Oh to show off even more of her comedic chops, as her character Ji-Yoon navigates institutional racism and sexism, confronts a scandal involving her colleague and love interest (Jay Duplass), and tries to chart a path forward for the embattled school.

Oh spoke to The LA Times earlier this year about the significance of her character's name. "I was ecstatic when Amanda Peet gave me this script and I had a Korean name," she said. "It was very deep for me to receive this script. To have a Korean name is very important, just in the way of normalizing things. It’s nice to be able to hear a name that you might not be familiar with, but all the other characters are saying my name, and saying my name correctly."

The cast also includes Holland Taylor as veteran professor Joan Hambling, Bob Balaban as the insecure Professor Elliot Rentz, Nana Mensah as Professor Yaz McKay, a young Black colleague who Ji-Yoon befriends, David Morse as the college dean, Paul Larson, and Everly Carganilla as Ju-Hee “Ju Ju” Kim, Ji-Yoon's young daughter.

Watch the trailer above.

In the sneak preview, Oh's character tackles the rapid unraveling of the Pembroke English department, along with her tumultuous love life.

The show is David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's first series since Game of Thrones.

After a few false starts and an abandoned Star Wars trilogy, Benioff and Weiss are making their return to TV two years on from the divisive last season of Game of Thrones. But Benioff and Weiss didn't write The Chair, which is perhaps a relief to the legions of fans who were less than thrilled with how things wrapped up in Westeros.

Amanda Peet wrote the series and serves as an executive producer.

Peet, who most recently gave an extraordinary performance as Betty Broderick in the second season of Dirty John, co-created and co-wrote the show with writer Annie Julia Wyman.

The Chair will be released on Netflix on August 20th.

It will be available with your Netflix subscription.

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