The show is pure Barney the Dinosaur mentality. Everyone is friends and gets along, and sometimes when there are real issues that COULD have material impact on people, they just get resolved by people saying the right words and everyone being friends. Unless there is a serious course-correction and the writers have just done a bad job of progressing through plotlines after setting the table, then the moral of the show is that performative sensitivity and pointing out things like "colonialism" are on their own good enough to make things better.
If you aren't aware, the premise is Jason Sudoku from SNL (he played Biden in 08!) is an (American) college football coach who gets hired to coach (soccer) futbol on Nonce Island. This premise is pretty interesting because college football coaches are all literal psychopaths, and the idea of one trying to coach soccer is genuinely funny. The first season was maybe not as bad in hindsight as the show has gotten, but it was short and I watched it all basically in a day out of boredom (this show is EXTREMELY popular among football/sports media people).
Anyways, season 2 has some of the pieces for interesting conflict along class/racial/economic lines, but all the people are friends and friendship is the best so the problems get solved offscreen. Also, the dialogue is 99% soy banter and like, Family Guy style obscure reference humor but coming from a guy who really WANTS to be Mister Rogers. And some people do SWEARS, so it's definitely not for babies! But if you took them out it would be!
If this show is as influential as some people think, then I fear it is only a matter of time before the cheap network clones roll out a thousand worse versions of this and liberals talk about how great it is over brunch while nothing gets meaningfully done. Any sort of progressive ideals or "difficult topics" are 100% there performatively. I think Felix would put this much better than I did, so hopefully we get a "This is Sus" special.
Foundation might be good when it comes out? Still not gonna pay for it though.
I watched the first two episodes with my wife and had to feel like a heartless asshole because I didn't like it. I even like Jason Sudeikis and Juno Temple and Septa Unella, but the jokes were painfully unfunny and there weren't a lot of them, just live-action Ned Flanders coming in with hot ones like "tea tastes like garbage water."
What drives me nuts about this kind of show in general is that its fans moralise it so much, and they all use the same talking points. "It's just what we need now!" "Isn't a show about kindness and empathy more important now than ever?" "I guess I'm just supposed to like mean depressing shows, then!" I don't understand why they all feel so threatened when the show has like 99% critical approval ratings and is only now starting to get some pushback.
(Other factors in my dislike for this show: I don't like rom-coms that much, I think 40 minutes is an absurd length for a sitcom episode, I showed my wife The Damned United once and she didn't like it)
Shows we ACTUALLY need right now: "October (Ten Days that Shook the World)"
I guess I deserve gulag because I loved the first season (though I have been apathetic about s2 so far). I watch an unhealthy amount of soccer tho so that's probably it.
I was disappointed that there was almost 0 American football in the entire first season, other than that one part (which was somewhat of a gag, although it was semi-relevant). I don't count it as a strike against the show because soccer is bigger everywhere else, but this guy could have just been an American soccer coach or whatever. But definitely feels like a missed opportunity.
I deserve gulag too because I do like Roy Kent (because he tells Ted Lasso to go fuck himself all the time).
but this guy could have just been an American soccer coach or whatever.
Ok now that I am imagining Ted Lasso in MLS I definitely agree they probably missed an opportunity there
And I cannot stress enough that US football coaches are fucking monstrous, ESPECIALLY at the college level (which is indentured labor with mascots). Perhaps the most beloved and well-regarded college coach covered up a sexual predator for YEARS because he was an assistant coach. AND THAT WAS ARGUABLY THE BEST ONE.
Definitely from the same lineage, although P&R had occasional stakes.
I thought the first season was alright. I probably wouldn't have watched it on my own, but I watched it with my mom and it was good enough imo. The second season has been completely awful however. Any plot point that may add any drama or tension is resolved immediately through the power of friendship and it is just boring.
It does that thing in sitcoms where characters that logically should not really interact, or be strictly professional with each other, act like they are super close best friends/family. Normally shows only get like that after 3 or 4 seasons, but this show did that almost immediately and it didn't really feel earned.
Also worth mentioning that this seems to be the most popular of the Apple TV originals, so maybe it's not actually popular and everyone who "likes" it is getting iTunes gift cards to #sponcon it.
Ive heard about it for the first time yesterday. Outta touch baby!
This is like one of those things that the instant you're aware of it, it suddenly materializes all around you. I don't know what that phenomenon is called but I can already tell it's one of those.
there was almost something interesting when a player on the team was from a country where a company that owned a team sponsor was stealing resources from/destroying nature in. i was like oh shit actual conflict, i wonder whats going to happen and see if that means the team loses funding or has to fire players or something...and then it gets resolved the next episode with nothing mentioned. the sponsor is different now but...yeah.
its also very weird to me that a premier league team faced relegation in s1 but they now have 2 football stars on the team (dani and jamie) and they are facing relegation...again? are they just that bad??? like i know its not your issue with the show but it got me questioning the competency of the players.
That same character who had the issue with the airline had a good scene in the first season, when Lasso tries to give him a toy soldier.
Obviously Anglo TV is gonna miserably fail the liberalism and imperialism tests, so I dunno. I haven’t paid as close of attention to the 2nd season but I don’t mind it
Instead of addressing the complex dynamics of what not "sticking to sports" ACTUALLY means, they used it as a way for the woke girlboss to impress a young girl and then to sneak in a plotline where everyone is on a dating app that rewards being a good writer.
It's goofy pap that means nothing compared to the usual goofy pap
After I started embracing socialism and communism I had a bad habit of trying to critique media from the left. I don't do that anymore. I don't have a podcast. I don't twitter. If I were a maoist in the field I would probably still enjoy watching Ted Lasso season 2 and get executed by the Japanese Red Army leadership.
maybe this is because the person who introduced this show to me is a tech white straight male, but the ted lasso show seems very reddit-y, if that makes sense? Like its the type of feel good stuff that ends up on the reddit front page (doggo , nbc community show type shit ) which always leans hyper wholesome and barney-like. the type of wholesome that always seems centered on animals and people of two backgrounds finding common ground in a hyper surface level way that always just made the real way reddit treats women, minorities, minority stories, lgbt people (aka very very badly and insane) way more pronounced for me. like they love dogs but the second anyone on r/publicfreakout is black and kind of mad the insanity comes out
Totally- the only thing they haven't done yet is a "I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE" bit. It's definitely like, well the boss and employee are friends and so there are no structural issues to address! This doughy Br*t mad a sad face when an African player mentioned colonialism so now we know he's a good one and the problems are over!
Honestly this sounds like most sitcoms. Especially when they try to get serious about some sort of social issue.
I would agree, but this is definitely an evolutionary step forward because it FEELS different. A Chuck Lorre sitcom still has a ton of conservative garbage humor, this is pure blue wave mindset. I don't know that I am smart enough to explain it.
Maybe. TBH I haven't watched myself even though I've been kind of interested.
