5 ways Ted Lasso can continue without, well, Ted Lasso
After an underwhelming third season, here's how the Apple TV Plus phenom—or its spinoff?—could thrive sans star Jason Sudeikis
TV Features Ted Lasso
Ted Lasso’s third season was discombobulating. In 12 protracted episodes, the Apple TV+ comedy lost sight of what once made it charming. The drawn-out plots, unnatural character choices, and confusing pace limited the show’s impact. Ted Lasso’s trademark warmth became borderline insufferable by the time the unnecessarily lengthy finale arrived, because that warmth often felt forced instead of nuanced. Season three had a few bright spots like Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), but in hindsight, Ted Lasso’s third season mostly just inched toward series co-creator and Jason Sudeikis’ exit.
The season finale, “So Long, Farewell,” is a 74-minute roundabout way for Ted to bid adieu to the team he called home for three years. Coach Lasso’s departure was understandably emotional—he got a surprise performance and a sweet airport goodbye (not unlike The Office, huh?)—but also inevitable. As Ted reminds Trent in his note, this was never about him. Is that true? We don’t think so. Ted Lasso weirdly tried to tell the audience that the show wasn’t about its titular character. However, that missive of kindness and asking for help falls flat by the end because none of it is earned, especially as the episode tries to ambiguously and poorly pass off a flash forward as Ted’s dream. It’s all real, though.
The narrative choice to leave things up in the air in “So Long, Farewell” indicates that Ted Lasso might return in some form. Is it a fourth season? Is it a Richmond-centric spinoff with a different title? It’s hard to say. The bigger question is: Should it even return without its lead? TV shows have survived main stars exiting to varying degrees. Despite a talented ensemble, Ted Lasso has run its course based on the underwhelming season. But it’s a huge hit and an awards magnet, so Apple TV+ is keeping everyone on the edge of their seat.
“So Long, Farewell” provided a conclusion, but even without Sudeikis—and with hopefully much more Bill Lawrence—Ted Lasso has the scope of returning to form. Ted, the character, was out of focus a whole bunch for this reason. There’s a way to keep it going successfully, even though it doesn’t have to. Here are a few ways Ted Lasso (or whatever the next Lassoverse show is) could do just that.
28 Comments
“In our heads, they’re a successful throuple because that’s at least what they (and we) deserve.”I don’t know, in my head they’re 3 good friends who aren’t in a ‘throuple’. I think we deserve better representations of friendship on screen in general.
I thought the third season was a large step up from the second season and feel like it was a perfectly fine little show that has run its course. I’d consider watching a Roy/Jamie/Keeley show but that’s about it, and only because they’re really good characters.The whole musical number in the last episode was a goddamn hilarious gem of a scene.
Yeah I’m kinda tired of the internet’s need to make everyone fuck. People can just be good friends
The Internetmake everyone fuck
That’s not woke
Just fucking kill this shit already.
I’d love to see a spin-off just called AFC Richmond that’s about everyone else. It’s the other characters and their journeys we really love anyway. Ted was just our window into that world.
That’s basically what this whole slide show amounted to. Can you do a Roy spinoff with Rebecca and Keeley? Without the team and staff? Not really. Like, it would be weird to have a Keeley and Rebecca show about the women’s team and just never acknowledge the men’s side again.Each of these slides basically just amount to: continue the storylines from the end of season 3, but without Ted. It’s hard to take up one storyline without the others.Which I’m not saying is a bad thing. It could work. Although the overall execution of season 3 gives me pause.
Please don’t. The third season, while still enjoyable, already felt a bit stale and bloated.
The show wasn’t about Ted and also wasn’t about football. People who thought that, including critics, had issues with the third season. I thought it was great.
Woketards love pointless shit!
Sans Lasso. You’re welcome.
I think the threesome concept will have to live on in its devotees’ fan fiction. Not my place to judge but I think they made the right choice with Keeley choosing herself instead of either or both of the dudes. I might like to merge the idea of the new women’s Richmond team with a show about the team of lovable goofballs we already have. I am always happy to see NBA players attending games & cheering on the WNBA teams that play in the same cities, I think that could be a cool dynamic.
an awards magnetwell now that’s the saddest thing i’ve read all day.
I didn’t like that they built the flirtation between Roy and the teacher, and then just left it there. She seems to have been a better match than Keeley, which always seemed forced.
If they do a spinoff it will be focused on a womans team. That seems pretty obvious.
/They should not do a spinoff//Juno Temple needs to eat more
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After that dance routine I’d like to see the Richmond squad fired into the Sun. I’d watch that.
Richmond FC women’s team would be an obvious way to go. Can certainly have some American players on the team to make up for the loss of Sudekis. But as has been noted, you would still need the likes of Roy Kent involved for the show to hold on to fans.
Nate starting back as an assistant kit man as a form of penance makes sense but the team itself invited him back, he didn’t seek them out. If a continuation occurred he should at least be an assitant coach or the coach of AFC Women’s team.
The only spin off I want to see is Nate inexplicably going to the US to coach American Football.
Or just don’t.Things end. Things SHOULD end. And of the things that should end, a short TV show (based on a commercial) about an American coaching a UK soccer team is high on the list. It’s a premise with a built in and obvious shelf life. Fish out of water comes in, changes everyone for the better, leaves. Boom. Anything else after that is just pointless.
The only way a continuation/spinoff could work is if the show abandons the “everyone and everything must be about niceness” mandate it too slavishly stuck to in season three. Everyone had already completed their journeys to niceness, so any future stories would have to be allowed to be about other things. I truly believe that they had a really great Darth Nate story arc planned out, but then in the writer’s room, they got cold feet about letting Nate spend half the season as an increasingly bad guy before he hits bottom and works his way back up to being Good Nate and THEN confronting is dark master Rupert and breaking away. Instead of that potentially great storyline (and something that would have been delightful for Nick Mohammed to sink his acting teeth into), we instead got one scene of Nate overcoming his mirror-spitting, and then he was just a blandly nice character on a very meatless journey from sorrowful niceness to being reaccepted by all with no questions asked and then, and THEN, not even being given the golden opportunity to share his insight into how to beat the team he coached successfully for eight months!
The writing team lost the will to put any of the characters through any sort of real narrative conflict or let them continue to struggle with anything. Everyone ended up with a fairy tale ending. They’d have to undo those happily ever afters to give these characters something interesting to do, and then let them actually struggle to achieve those goals.
I think the niceness is vital, it’s just that niceness doesn’t mean anything without being challenged. And as you so well put, the writers were afraid to challenge the characters. Most conflicts amounted to everyone working on being happy with themselves
THEN, not even being given the golden opportunity to share his insight into how to beat the team he coached successfully for eight months!
I’m floored about how they missed this.
I think that is because they went so in on “This is not a show about soccer.”
I’d watch all of these. Warts and all. I’m addicted to the world of this show. The atmosphere of it. The positive energy. I still need it. It’s only been a few days, since ending, and shopping around, the tv landscape is a bleak and bitter one.I’d love for Rebecca to come to the States, buy our women’s team, and in true sequel tradition (The Karate Kid 2 goes to Japan, Rush Hour 2 goes to Hong Kong, etc), be a complete international reversal from last time. I mean, if they do women’s football, they’d either have to make the US National team the villains, or be the team we follow, because we’re the only ones that are any good 😉
Hopefully they will either let sleeping dogs lie, or they’ll revert to the half-hour sitcom format they shouldn’t have left in the first place.The show worked as a comedy, but it wasn’t good enough to be a long-format sitcom (few ever are) or deep enough to be the comedy drama the longer format typically needs. There is a long tradition in British comedy of longer one-off Christmas specials for the most beloved sitcoms, but they’re “one-off specials” for good reason.
No. I love it when shows bow out gracefully and don’t capitulate to our desire for ever more story until the well is bone-dry. They told the story they wanted to tell, plus a little bit more than they’d originally planned and now it’s done.
You lost me at underwhelming #bye