Ted Lasso is back on TV. Apple’s hit soccer series, which helped usher in the current streaming trend of sports-themed comedy programs, debuted its fourth season on Wednesday. But after three years away, you may be wondering if the Emmy-winning comedy is still firing on all cylinders.
Apple TV sent members of the press the first five episodes of the new season for review. Based on these episodes, I can say with certainty, the Ted Lasso we all fell in love with is so back.
Cocreated by and starring Jason Sudeikis, the series, which followed an American football coach tapped to mentor a struggling UK soccer team, was a major hit right out of the gate. It hit TV at the height of the pandemic, when many viewers were still stuck indoors, yearning for positive escapism. The show did just that, cementing Sudeikis as a formidable star and introducing a new crop of UK actors to the celebrity A-List.
Some of those names have returned for the show’s fourth season. Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jeremy Swift are all back, reprising the roles that made them household names.
Getting the proverbial band back together is already a big part of the season’s success. Yet instead of continuing to wring whatever juice remained in the AFC Richmond storyline, Ted Lasso’s fourth season makes the smart pivot to focus on Richmond’s struggling women’s soccer league.
The first three seasons relied heavily on the fish-out-of-water premise of an American football coach heading overseas into unfamiliar territory to coach an unfamiliar sport. Season 4 of Apple TV’s comedy flips the fish-out-of-water script and puts Mr. Lasso in a different sort of awkward position: being a male head coach of an all-female team.
Now look, I know how that last sentence may sound. But there are a load of real-life issues that come with that simple statement. Female soccer…