'Ted Lasso' Review
TV-MA
Runtime: 30+ minutes per episode (10 episodes)
Production Companies: Warner Bros. Television, Doozer, Universal Television
Distributors: NBCUniversal Television Distribution, Warner Bros. Television Distribution, Apple Inc.
Network: Apple TV+
Created by: Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis
Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Stephen Manas, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Juno Temple, Hannah Waddingham, Bronson Webb, Jeremy Swift, Nick Mohammed
Release Date: August 18, 2020 (one episode a week)
It’s odd watching fictional characters made for commercials end up with their own films or television shows. When it comes to feature-length films, the results are sometimes bad (Space Jam), sometimes decent (Uncle Drew), or they could end up with a long-lasting franchise (Ernest). When it comes to television, the results are usually disastrous. For example, remember 2002’s Baby Bob? Or, even worse, The Cavemen, based on those Geico commercials? Those were terrible. Now, Bill Lawrence and Jason Sudeikis are taking a crack at turning a series of commercials into a GOOD television series. And you know what? They actually got it right!
Based on the fictional character of the same name made for NBC Sports promos back in 2013/2014, Ted Lasso focuses on an optimistic Kansas college football coach who is hired to coach an English football (or what we Yanks call “soccer”) team, the AFC Richmond, an English Premier League team with a terrible track record. The problem is that Lasso doesn’t know a damn thing about the sport.
That premise alone sounds like a one-note comedy straight from the ‘90s, but Lawrence and Sudeikis really took their time and developed this series to be a heartwarming adult dramedy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an adult comedy, but it uses an ingredient that I feel is absent in most TV comedies today. Where most adult comedies focus on being shocking and vulgar, Lasso uses character development as its skeleton and genuine heart as its backbone. Sudeikis and Bill Lawrence have truly found the key ingredients for making successful comedies: putting heart in the front seat and leaving the raunchiness in the back.
This show is significantly different from the Lasso sketches from 2013; it strips the character of his inept, bumbling, obnoxious American stereotypes and transforms him into a sweet, likable guy, replacing the obnoxiousness with optimism. Part of the series’ central plot focuses on Lasso being set up to fail by his boss, who has her own personal motivations. It’s clear from the first few episodes that the creative forces behind Ted Lasso took their time rebuilding the character from the ground up, making him sympathetic, funny, someone you can root for, and inoffensive — and they succeeded on every level.
Lasso took me by surprise thanks to the titular character’s unbelievable charm and Sudeikis’s incredible, charismatic performance. Jason Sudeikis might be one of the few comedic performers who can turn water into wine with any role he takes. The guy can star in terrible projects, but he’ll completely commit to the role every time. Since this is his passion project, he commands the screen with an exuberant, positive nature.
One detail left out of the premise is the fact that his boss, Rebecca Halton (Hannah Waddingham), deliberately hired Lasso knowing he was inexperienced in the field, just to get back at her cheating ex-husband. Then, you have the underdog dysfunctional Richmond team itself, where most of the players give Lasso the cold shoulder. Even though the man has his flaws and is completely clueless of the situation at hand, you can’t help but to root for him. As per usual, Sudeikis’s comedic timing is impeccable as he garners the most laughs through his delivery. But when the show takes an unexpected turn into dramatic territory, Sudeikis still commits, especially when Lasso must be the coach he was hired to be.
The supporting characters in this show are delightful and the performers shine brightly. Brendan Hunt––also a writer on the show––reprises his role as Coach Beard, Lasso’s right hand man who has a great number of moments. But the ones who steal the show are Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca, who is intimidating and conniving but has the most human arc, and Juno Temple — who I didn’t even know was English until now –– who is just a bucket of charismatic joy as the spunky Keeley Jones. Jones is a famous model and girlfriend to the Richmond team’s best player, Jaimie (Phil Dunster), who is a complete jerk to everyone around him. Lastly, Brett Goldstein plays the Richmond team captain Rory, a once MVP megastar whose glory days are long behind him. While at first they may seem like archetypes you’d see in any given sports drama, what makes them shine are the actors’ performances and the chemistry they have with each other.
As the first season progresses, it integrates a good dosage of melodrama in the midst of the comedy. Albeit being an odd shift, it works due to the writing and performances by the ensemble. Granted, it takes the show some time to find its footing, but when the characters begin to display nuances, it transforms into a genuinely heartwarming sports dramedy that goes in-depth with characters who initially appear as one-dimensional archetypes and develop them into fleshed-out people.
Ted Lasso is marketed as something of a comedy — hell, it’s based on a series of comedic commercial sketches — yet that’s its most lacking department, especially when the series hits a turning point midway through the season where it sacrifices most of the laughs to focus on fleshing out the characters. When the jokes hit, they hit hard, but they’re also sporadic. That being said, its lack of comedy doesn’t undermine my engagement with the series. At a certain point, I didn’t care about the fact that I wasn't watching a comedy anymore. I came for the laughs and stayed for the heart. I kept watching because of how enticing the story got and how complex the characters became. This might be one of my favorite shows of 2020. I don’t even know what to classify it as, but it left my heart feeling happy, full, and wanting more of Ted Lasso and the Richmond team. If this show receives a second season, they just need to integrate more humor.
