In the new French comedy Flunked, a small-time con artist is sent by a police detective to go undercover as a high school math teacher, in order to flush out the son of a drug and arms kingpin. But as soon as the con artist arrives at the school, things get complicated.

FLUNKED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A man walks into a club and greets a number of people there, talking about business dealings. He goes into the back office and tosses a bag full of gold coins at the man at the desk.

The Gist:  Eddy Santozzio (Alexandre Kominek) is a small-time con artist who is really good at math. He’s so good that he calculates how much he owed for the gold in his head, and calls out his customer over shorting him. But before that can be resolved, there’s a raid, and Eddy is brought in by the police.

He’s questioned by Lucie (Laurence Arné) a local police detective, who knows about his identities and his proclivity for math. But she has bigger fish to fry: A Russian arms and drug dealer whose son goes to Charles Baudelaire High School in Lille. He will get out of any jail time if he poses as a math teacher and finds out the identity of the dealer’s son.

Eddy has vowed never to set foot in a high school again, given how he used to get bullied there. But Lucie steps up her offer by threatening to spread a rumor to his potential fellow inmates that he’s a pedophile.

Eddy takes the assignment, where he’s known as Edouard Martin. At the school he’s taken around by Viviane (Josephine of Meaux), the guidance counselor. He also meets the very conservative history teacher Nora (Sabrina Ouazani), the very liberal physics teacher Pablo (Yannik Landrein), and the weird Russian teacher Laurence (Bérangère McNeese). Another teacher, Gilbert (Gustave Kervern) is there, but checked out.

He fakes his way through his first two classes, asking the students probing questions about their parents’ names and criminal history. But when a student in the second class pushes him, he automatically reacts by decking the teen. This gets him a visit to the principal, who turns out to be his teenage girlfriend Tiphaine (Leslie Medina). They broke up after he was caught breaking into her teacher father’s safe to steal exam answers to sell at school. When he tells Lucie, she has to think quickly to figure out how to get him his job back.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Flunked (Original title: Recalé) feels like a cross between 21 Jump Street and English Teacher.

Our Take: Flunked drifts more into the category of the latter show we cited above, English Teacher, because it’s supposed to point out how screwed up public education is, seen through the eyes of Eddy. High school was never a good experience for him, but he’s seeing a whole new set of stupidity as he tries to get the information Lucie needs. For instance Viviane tells him to “teach for the ones that are listening. Don’t try to get the others. You throw 30 in the sea, and save the two who swim.”

With the introduction of the other teachers that will be in Eddy’s orbit, we’re going to have a lot of situations where there are arguments, discussions about what “kids are into these days,” and bitching and moaning about how they can’t even get enough money for pencils or a copier that works.

It will be funny, though to see Eddy try to navigate all this while under the gun to find this drug kingpin’s son, whose name he doesn’t even know. He’s faking his way through being both a teacher and a detective, all the while having flashbacks to high school, navigating whatever fake story Lucie has cooked up for the two of them, and wondering where it all went wrong with Tiphaine.

It has the potential to be too much, but creator François Uzan gets off to a good start by giving a lot of information about the situation and characters without having to do boring expository speeches. Is the show actually funny? At times. But we think it’ll get funnier the deeper Eddy gets into the fabric of the school.

Performance Worth Watching: Alexandre Kominek has some good comic timing as Eddy, especially as Eddy shoots back insults at Lucie when she’s interrogating him, then irritates her by calling her Lulu.

Sex And Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: To get Eddy his job back, Lucie tells Tiphaine that the two of them are getting married and they need to save for their wedding, then proceeds to uncomfortably kiss him.

Sleeper Star: We’re thinking that Sabrina Ouazani’s Nora is going to be the funniest of the teachers, as she vehemently argues why Pablo should not be using her coffee pods in the teacher’s lounge.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Speaking of fathers, does anyone here not know their dad?” Eddy asks his first class. He’s not exactly smooth at this.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While Flunked isn’t as funny as other recent school-based shows, the first episode introduces some potentially funny supporting characters, and the undercover aspect adds a lot of potential funny situations to explore.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.