Ted Lasso on Apple TV {Returns March 15, 2023}

I am still in disbelief over how shitty it was. I think they were trying to be cute by doing xmas in August as if we don’t have enough xmas stuffed down our throats for like 20% of the year. For decades now, it’s always August when xmas advertising starts up and we start to see holiday stuff in stores.

Ok that might make sense as nothing advanced any storylines . Well it is done , forgotten and onwards

I think it’s just a factor of when it was made. Most shows film their Xmas episode somewhere between June and September. If they do any external shooting, they have to dress their locations appropriately, including often faking snowfall. They also costume their extras as if it’s colder than it is.

In this case, though, they were shooting in the UK in unusual pandemic conditions that limited travel, among other things. I’m just speculating, but they might have thought, hey, as long as we’re hanging around, we can get some free production value out of the fact that the city’s already dressed up, we don’t need to spend any extra, so let’s throw together a holiday show.

That this means its airdate a few months later is out of season is a little odd, sure, but that’s a one-time issue on first airing. In future, the people who enjoyed it can watch it any time they like, including on or around the holiday.

I hope this one was more to everyone’s liking.

Seems like an explanation for why Nate wasn’t allowed the window table should have occurred, but otherwise, a lot of plot.

Also… I wonder if the heavily implied thing is a misdirect.

Liked this one quite a bit. Really enjoyed the “romantic comedy” structural gimmick they threaded through it.

They’re heavily implying two plot points going forward:

1 - Ted and Rebecca apparently flirting with each other on the anonymous app

2 - Nathan being uncertain about his authority on the team and seeing the addition of Roy as a knock on his usefulness

Both of these will create useful conflict which this show needs to generate to keep from getting stale.

I’m a little surprised about the turn in the sponsorship storyline: Apparently Dubai Air is just gone, with no further fallout? And their new main benefactor is the online dating app? Really? Seems like a bit of a hasty patch, so that plot wouldn’t take over, like I speculated in post 28 above.

All of this certainly tips the show into feeling like a light comedy-fantasy with a sport backdrop, rather than the more grounded football comedy some viewers wanted it to be (and that it has sometimes flirted with, given the “downer” relegation ending in the first season).

Still fun, though. Every word out of Roy’s mouth, every heavy-browed glare, is solid gold.

Significantly better than the previous one, but I’m still not loving this season. Season 1 was a lot of overcoming adversity while keeping a positive attitude. This season is almost to the point that overcoming isn’t even important at all. Just glurge. I saw a review for last week that called the episode “Hallmark channel for blue states” and it that might be true. If so, it’s not for me.

Now that was more like it. One of best episodes of the show imo. The RomCommunism stuff was hilarious, but it was great to see Nate stand up for himself and gain some confidence and have Roy realize he is supposed to be a coach. And how those story lines intersect at the end.

Ted’s brief run in with the doc seemed to be foreshadowing… and of course he’s the one texting Rebecca, right? - unless it’s all a big red herring.

That was quite a bit disappointing. I don’t want it to be completely divorced from the business of running a team.

That’s what they were suggesting. But I hope they don’t go there as I like Ted and Rebecca as friends better.

Good episode, although it does feel like they’re doing a lot of heavy lifting to set up their plotting. It just feels like a ton of setup - Rebecca is on the dating app, Roy is coaching, Jamie’s back on the team, etc.

Having said that, I don’t think the Ted/Rebecca thing will turn out to be true. In any case, the show has a way of handling such things cleverly.

Agree with Snarky , much better , had a good few laugh out loud and feel good moments , the roy fucking keen show is fun, but season one this is not. I am rooting for it to pull through though.

Too schmaltzy for my tastes. Kinda predictably so as well.

A lot of plot just dropped.

A couple of episodes ago, they were 4-4-14. Now (spoiler box in case anyone is reading the thread without having viewed today’s episode)

they’re in the FA Cup semifinal. I don’t follow football as much as some others, so can anyone explain; is this mathematically possible?

And I am curious what’s going to happen with Nate; is his success here going to make him insufferable?

They kind of explained it in the episode. It’s a mid-season tournament where teams from every league get to play. On occasion a team from a lower league has a Cinderella run which is apparently what’s happening now.

I read a post on reddit that brought up a great point that I missed. I’ll just copy it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TedLasso/comments/pcnwcr/spoiler_an_important_point_about_coaching_in/

It seems odd if it’s a mid-season cup. Looking in Wikipedia, the EFL Cup final (for Premier League teams) is in February while the FA Cup final (open to all leagues) is in May. Isn’t that the end of the season?

Right, but the FA Cup quarter finals are March and the semis in April, with the EFL Cup fixtures even earlier. I haven’t watched the episode yet to know what fixture is portrayed, so it’s possible that it would still qualify as “mid-season”.

The 4-4-14 record would indicate that 22 league matches have been played at that point, out of a total of 46 league matches, so roughly the mid-way point of the season (a few episodes back). So I think the schedule probably lines up reasonably well. It’s not like they’ve shown very much actual soccer this season.

I would add that the EFL Cup is not limited to Premier League teams. It’s open to the top-4 levels of the FA.

So which is the most prestigious championship? EFL Cup or FA Cup?

And in an earlier episode, someone mentioned the threat of relegation. I thought they were already relegated, from Premier League to Championship League. Is there another league below that they could be relegated to?

(BTW, I kind of like the idea of relegation and wonder how American sports would work with such a system. Imagine, for instance, a smaller MLB with a lesser league below it. Or even imagine if, say, the Ivy League used such a system, perhaps rating schools both on athletic performance as well as academic. “Dartmouth, you’re out. Stanford, you’re in. Princeton, well your sports teams suck, but your academic results saved you from relegation.”

I do too. As it is now, many teams have no chance of making the playoffs months before the end of the season. It would make games with them actually meaningful.