Ted Lasso

[Batutta]

This show is so much better than it has any right being. Nothing about the concept interested me, an American football coach who gets hired to coach an English 'football' team, but enough people said great things about it that I gave it a shot. It's a funny, warm dose of optimism in dark times and is perfectly cast all the way down the line. A couple actors like Brett Goldstein and Hannah Waddington I've never seen before and are pitch perfect. The plot feels reminiscent of Major League, another effortlessly breezy sports comedy, but this show has a lot more character depth than that film and winds up in a different place. Like the character of Ted himself, it seems superficially cheery but unpacks some unexpected layers beneath its optimistic facade. The show is on Apple Plus and it's funny how often the lowest profile stuff produced by streaming services winds up being their biggest hits.

 

[DLD]

It's sort of based on Bob Bradley - an ex Chicago, New York, Chivas USA, USMNT, Egypt, Stabaek, Le Havre, Swansey City coach, currently with the LAFC - who was hired in 2016 to run a struggling EPL club that is owned by the American investors. Bob rode into Wales with too many Americanisms and was ridiculed for it.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIbF2gvCMktgMQfF5ewraaGLa9NxCpQSg[/video]

On top of that, Bob was way over his head in the EPL and was fired after eight matches (they don't call them games there).

 

[DLD]

The other precedent was ESPN hiring a baseball announcer Dave O'Brien to cover the US team leading to the 2006 World Cup and then the WC itself. O'Brien was taught some cliches but had a very difficult time understanding the game. Additionally, he was told to push more "human interest" stories. Unfortunately, O'Brien must have been a total dumb ass because he was excited with the most mundane things - "oh, look, he touched the ball with his hands" - "Dave, he's a goalkeeper. He's allowed to do that" - while missing the important parts. One story he was obsessed about was the US GK Kasey Keller, then playing in Germany with Borussia Mönchengladbach, living in an old castle that had a moat. The US soccer fans hated Dave. He responded by calling them "idiots" (or something in that vein). It didn't help that his color analyst was as dumb. Marcelo Balboa was famous for saying things like, "their strongest strengths" but John Skipper had too much invested in them and they had to cover the WC with much disgust from the US. They were dismissed immediately after the WC was over.

I quote from Wikipedia -

Disney stated that their broadcast strategy was intended, in voice and style, to target the vast majority of Americans who do not follow the sport on a regular basis. Mispronunciation and incorrect addressing of names, misuse of soccer terminology, and lack of insight into tactics and history plagued the telecasts, resulting in heavy criticism from English-speaking soccer fans, with some either muting commentary or watching the tourney in Spanish on Univision instead.

The story somewhat repeated itself prior to 2014 WC, when Fox hired Gus Johnson to do important matches. Had he showed well, he'd be given the 2014 World Cup. He didn't do well and then decided to quit covering soccer.

 

[agcohn]

We just watched the first 4 episodes of "Ted Lasso" last night, and it is great so far. It does seem like an odd premise to begin with, but it so good-natured and has so much depth to the characters despite many of them seeming like they're just going to be walking cliches at the beginning.

It reminded us of something that might have been a terrible Adam Sandler project in the wrong hands, but without the characters being one-dimensional assholes or existing just to be the butt of jokes. And it is just really funny as well.

 

[OldCorpse]

Gotta agree with the previous posters. I was super sceptical when I saw the persistent promotion campaign on Apple TV+, thinking “this is just not for me, sports, light comedy, ugh”. But then again, I also knew that this is not how it works, the sports aspect is just a device and not the focus, so I finally decided to give it a try because of all the praise it was getting. I just watched several episodes with my wife, and wouldn’t you know it, it isn’t half bad! The key for me was that the comedy actually worked insofar as being funny, that’s the key.

However, I fear for it in the longer run. The writers/show creators have a choice. They can keep focused on the comedy element, or they can get lazy (or misguided) and try to lean into the other elements, such as the “sweetness” aspect of the character. Sure, the sweet optimism is a nice touch, but there is great danger that it becomes the focus - that’s like thinking “people really like sweet icing on the cake, what if the whole cake was icing!”. Fatal mistake. Also very tempting, since writing comedy is hard, making stuff funny is hard, coming up with it episode after episode is hard.

Examples of such failures are endless. I generally like Ricky Gervais a great deal, I think he’s a great comedian. But he did a series “Derek”, which started out super funny and very edgy, and then he forgot the cardinal rule of comedy - BE FUNNY - and took the lazy way out, or perhaps was misled into trying for something grandiose, and tried to make the main character “sweet” and the whole thing a kind of drama - and the series promptly failed. It was a disaster - I loved the first few episodes but then had to bail out in disgust.

So a word of warning to the creators of “Ted Lasso” - remember to “dance with them what brung you”. What makes this successful is to keep it funny. Hello, it’s a comedy. Forgetting this critical point, is a sure road to failure. Already in the last couple of episodes I watched, things are starting to wobble - the one where Lasso has a panic attack - is starting to get talky and losing its timing and focus. So I’m not super optimistic in the long run.

But so far, a nice surprise! YMMV.

EDIT: I finished the series, and I enjoyed it to the end, though I still wonder about the longer term. Is the “sweet optimist” routine gonna wear thin in the second season. Are they going to develop secondary themes sucessfully, or will it be a self-defeating direction. Many challenges ahead. There are some danger signs - too many scenes feel “just so” written, artificial, flat and barely skating by. It’s important to retain psychological plausibility and I feel like some characters are losing it, particularly the boss lady. I’m wishing them well, though, and I’ll check out the next season, if they have one.