Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Boarders’ On Tubi, About A Group Of Teens On Scholarship At A Very Privileged Boarding School

Earlier this month, the Fox-owned FAST streamer Tubi got into the original content game with Boarders, a BBC-produced series that they licensed to stream in the U.S. It’s the kind of show we’ve seen on other streamers; it’s a little quirky, definitely funny, but also explores some pretty weighty themes.

BOARDERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A screenshot of a live social media post of two boarding school teens drinking and spraying Champagne all over an unhoused man.

The Gist: We cut to the tony campus of St. Gilbert’s, a boarding school outside of London. Bernard (Derek Riddell), the headmaster, is talking to Gus (Daniel Lawrence Taylor) about the scholarships that he’s extending to five students in Gus’ South London afterschool program. While trying to spin what Gus says to the press about it, Gus knows it’s about the video of the assault of the unhoused man. “Even the Daily Mail called it ‘The Great British Shame’,” says Gus.

The five students coming to St. Gilbert’s are Jaheim (Josh Tedeku), a coding genius who often gets in physical altercations with his buddies; Leah (Jodie Campbell), who fights gentrification and just about anything that smacks of racism; Omar (Myles Kamwendo), a comics artist who insists that there is a secret society at the school that is called the Rasinettes; Toby (Sekou Diaby), who is a sneakerhead who thinks he can make some bank selling kicks to the rich white kids at the school; and Femi (Aruna Jalloh), who is just happy to get away from his verbally abusive father. These are all teens that Gus feels have potential, but have been severely underserved by the public school system in South London.

When they get to the school, everyone starts staring at them; Gus instructs them to stare back and make an inane remark about the weather. They go to see which dorm they’re in; Jaheim and Toby are immediately confronted by a female classmate who has an attraction to Black guys, and an obnoxious dude named Rupert (Harry Gilby). The five new students are posed in front of a portrait of the school’s founder, which just happens to have the image of an enslaved Black boy in the background, which prompts Leah to demand to Bernard that the portrait be taken down down.

Rupert, it turns out, is one of the guys in the video that spurred the school to make the scholarships; he somehow has managed to stay at St. Gilbert’s because his father has the money to keep him there. On the first day, Jaheim and Rupert get into it on the rugby pitch — Jaheim has been recruited to the team, even though he’s never played rugby in his life — when Rupert grabs Jaheim’s privates in a scrum. When Jaheim takes a swing at Rupert, he’s immediately called into Bernard’s office, where the headmaster tells him to read the essay he wrote on his scholarship application, reminding him why he wanted to go.

An American girl named Mabel (Georgina Sadler) immediately latches onto Leah, but Leah is more interested in Abby (Assa Kanoute), one of the very few other Black students. Of course, Abby doesn’t feel like she’s at all the same as the scholarship students, but the two of them bond when Leah shows Abby a way to style her hair that’s more than just combing it back.

The conflict between Jaheim and Rupert escalates. Toby is dismayed that everyone thinks that he sells weed, until he meets Abby. Omar falls down a garbage chute, thinking it’s the secret entrance to the Rasinettes’ meeting place. Femi tries hard to fit in, following his dad’s orders, eschewing his buddies from London and taking part in a school tradition that none of his buddies would be caught dead doing.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Boarders is a more comedic take on Elite, with more of a racial element thrown in.

Our Take: Daniel Lawrence Taylor created and wrote Boarders, and through his role of Gus, you can see what his philosophy behind this series is going to be. Yes, these five Black students from South London are attending a mostly-white, wealthy school in the countryside, and they’re going to be scrutinized. “Don’t be who they expect you to be,” Gus tells the students. Taylor doesn’t shy away from the fact that the quintet is going to be “othered” immediately, but with that statement, they’re going to forge their own path, even when almost everyone at St. Gilbert’s is either curious about them or wants them to fail.

Despite the numerous aggressions, of both the micro and marco variety, the students suffer through, there are plenty of funny moments, especially as we see the vast majority of the school’s white population stumble all over themselves to make the new students feel welcome. It’ll be interesting to watch them figure out how to make it through this gauntlet, especially when some of them, like Jaheim, have conflicting feelings about being there. His buddies may see him as a sellout, but he also knows what kind of academic and societal opportunity this is, which is why he doesn’t bail on the school after a particularly brutal run-in with Rupert and his buddies.

In other words, this group isn’t going to put up with a lot of crap; at some point, they’ll all heed Leah’s warning, which she gives the boys when she sees them being cavalier about how they’ve been received: “Have you not watched Get Out? It’s not just a film, you know; it’s gospel. That (attitude) is how you might end up in the sunken place.”

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode, except for some bare butts seen during the beginning-of-the-school year ritual some of the male students engage in.

Parting Shot: As he comes back to St. Gilbert’s Jaheim calls one of his friends and tells him and his buddies to come to the school. “I’ve got some madness that I need to deal with.”

Sleeper Star: Harry Gilby’s character Rupert is set up as the show’s “bad guy,” but he has his own issues, namely an older brother who has no problem choking him out and a disinterested father that throws his money around to paper over problems.

Most Pilot-y Line: During the semester-opening assembly, the new group sits when they should stand, and stand when they’re told to sit. It’s a goofy bit of physical humor that doesn’t quite fit these characters.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Does Boarders say anything new? That’s yet to be seen. But even if it treads well-worn ground, it does so in a way that’s witty and funny, with just enough drama to let the audience know that the stakes for these five teens are pretty high.

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.