The Substitute

• Like all great storytelling, El Reemplazante doesn't preach, judge its characters, or reduce them to props for rehearsing pseudo-sociological theories. It steers clear of news-cycle stereotypes while firmly rejecting the patronizing imagery of poverty. Its creators romanticize nothing: the students of Príncipe Carlos High School simply stand face-to-face with their destiny.

• The series was a meaningful opportunity for us. It did our students good because it opened up other worlds to them. Some people initially claimed it disparaged the school, but in truth the school in the show was a subsidized one, exposing how Chilean education has been turned into a business.

• The series captures an educational crisis shared across the entire country, rooted in the privatization of schools where businessmen essentially run education. Public schooling is being dismantled in favor of private institutions, which is precisely what the final episodes expose as the school is traded between private operators without a second thought.

• El Reemplazante proves to be a work genuinely committed to portraying and reflecting upon the lives of underprivileged communities and the professionals who, despite their degrees, live and work alongside them. In this sense, the portrait of the people who inhabit the school serves to paint a much broader and more harrowing picture of society.

• Perhaps El Reemplazante is one of the clearest examples of how streaming and on-demand television grant us access to stories we might never have otherwise encountered. Few Chilean productions reach commercial cinema or television in Argentina, and if they all match the quality of this series, we might truly be missing out on extraordinary work.

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