Ted Lasso

I started watching this show as someone who doesn't care at all about football (soccer) and had no expectations for the series. Season 1 starts off slow and the Ted Lasso character is a bit annoying at first, but about halfway through the first season it all really started to click for me and season 2 was just fantastic. Another reviewer talked about the chemistry among the show's cast and I completely agree. I felt like they build the side characters well and a nice amount of the showtime focuses on them. Season 2 also gave me quite a few more chuckles. Overall, a great original series from Apple+ and definitely recommended from me.

The first 2 seasons are some of the all-time great television seasons, with several wonderful original characters and great themes that range from mentorship to camaraderie to romance to standing up for what you know is right among several others, and all the highs and lows that come with all of the above. It's heartwarming, well-written, and often downright hilarious. I especially like all the fish-out-of-water type humor whenever it comes to a very American very football-oriented coach who knows little to nothing about soccer or British culture suddenly thrust into the belly of the beast as a first-time Premier League coach.

No character is 1 or even 2-dimensional. Everybody is a complicated person with both demons and angels, and nobody is beyond redemption or above letting us down. Even characters who you think at first are going to be just one type of thing and only ever be that, will ultimately show you there is much more to them than initially met the eye.

While the first season does a phenomenal job setting up the world and delivering a contained story that would have been great if it had ended there, season 2 kept the momentum going by diving deeper into the character of Ted Lasso himself, who is likely the best role of Jason Sudeikis's career, the one where he really showed us he is a great and deep actor. While I would not go so far as to say the show should have ended there, it does get more lackluster as it goes on, especially in the 3rd season, where the writers seem to become unsure of where to take the characters and many of them become Flandersized as the episode-to-episode cadence falls more into a classic sitcom style rather than a show with a continuous plot that each episode significantly moves forward, like seasons 1-2 and even 4 are.

The 4th season, by dropping much of the cast of 1-3 and introducing a whole new team and challenge for Lasso by making him the coach of Richmond's brand-new women's team, which also allows the show to directly tackle themes of gender politics (and it does so pretty well for the most part), is able to recapture a little bit of the magic of seasons 1-2, although the writing never quite gets to the same high level it was at when the show began. There's still more than enough charm and powerful themes in all 4 seasons to make it an entertaining series front-to-back nonetheless.

Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein shine in their breakthrough roles as the very nuanced and relatable team owner Rebecca and the now-iconic gruff veteran soccer star with a heart of gold Roy Kent. Brendan Hunt's bizarre yet compelling and relatable Assistant Coach Beard is one of the all-time-great TV sidekicks. Nick Mohammed's Nate "the Great" Shelly has one of the most interesting and unexpected arcs I've ever seen on TV, one you would never see coming from how he is introduced in the pilot.

It's a show that leaves the viewer feeling good, yet never shies away from more difficult and challenging themes when it is appropriate. It's easy to watch, but never at the expense of an interesting and well-written plot (at least in the first 2 seasons, season 3 gets into this territory sometimes, as does 4 to a lesser extent). It gave us great characters, much to think about and relate to our own lives, and several memorable moments and lines.

Ted Lasso is a good TV show.

Feeling an A