A number of people I follow have been raving about Ted Lasso for a while, so I thought I’d give it a try. My thoughts:
- Season 1 is 10 episodes, each episode 30 minutes long. I finished all of the episodes over the span of one day!
- I didn’t know much coming in: I knew it was about sports, and I knew it was supposedly a comedy. For some reason I assumed it was about American football. It turns out to be about English association football, i.e. soccer!
- Wikipedia claims the series is a comedy, but it’s not a “ha-ha / laugh out loud” zany situation comedy like say, Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Modern Family. Ted Lasso is more of an “absurd premise” kind of comedy.
- Bill Lawrence, creator of Scrubs, helped develop the series, but it is much less zanier than that one.
- Instead, Ted Lasso is the story of an outsider coming into to help a dysfunctional team get their act together. I’d say the story it most reminds me of is Mighty Ducks. In both cases, I learned a lot more about the associated sport (Ice hockey / association football) works.
- The difference between Mighty Ducks’ reluctant coach Gordon Bombay and the titular Ted Lasso is that Ted is earnest, eager, and genuinely cares for his team, and he uses his abundant optimism to plot through any problems that life throws at him.
- The meat of the story is how Ted Lasso, an American football coach thrust into the unfamiliar world of the English Premiere League navigates both the foreign culture and the many contrasting personalities he has to work with.
- The main plotline of the team’s eventual win-loss record is at many times overshadowed by the character arcs and development, as the cast grows to understand each other and their roles within the team.
- I think one of the main reasons Ted Lasso has been so popular during this pandemic is the absolute optimism both of the show and the lead character inspite of all the challenges thrown his way. It’s a kind of optimism we could all use in these trying times.
See Also