Ted Lasso and Rebecca meet on the tarmac in front of a plane
Apple TV
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How you feel about Ted Lasso‘s return on Apple TV will greatly depend on your expectations. Your own expectations will also likely depend on how you felt about the show’s second and third seasons. If you liked or even loved them you have almost nothing to worry about; you’re going to love season four. It features much more logical, better paced scripts. It’s also (on the whole) a lot less saccharine than its trailers indicated. However, if you hated seasons two and three, and were instead hoping for a return to form from the show’s sublime first season, you’re going to be disappointed. Because the new Ted Lasso is totally fine. It’s not great or terrible, it’s just fine.
Apple TV made Ted Lasso season four’s first five episodes available to critics. After just seven minutes into the premiere I had my headline ready to go: “I Understand Why Ted Lasso’s Wife Divorced Him.” I felt the same way by the end of the unbearable first installment. It’s a well-made, humorless melodrama of sadness that annoyed me to no end. It’s the best version of a season three episode, which means it’s still really bad. But still, a more logical script and thoughtful plot is technically an improvement than most of the nonsense we got the last time the show was on. The problems came from the overly serious tone rather than illogical plot points and painful attempts at unearned earnestness
Being an improvement over the last two seasons is the very definition of damning with faint praise. Here’s actual praise: the second episode is legitimately good. It even made me laugh, something I had started to think Ted Lasso could no longer do. It was infinitely more fun and silly than the first. It’s as though the show remembered it’s supposed to be a comedy with some dramatic elements and not a drama that can’t tell a joke. Unfortunately, it couldn’t maintain that level for long.
Episodes three through five all have good moments. They also (mostly/not entirely) avoid many of the pitfalls that turned the show from one of TV’s best into one of its most frustrating. But they’re held back by far too many boring storylines. Keeley and Roy are, somehow, still in a will they/won’t they situation. It’s beyond tiresome. Keeley also finds herself once again fretting about her new business endeavor. In this case, her worries are promoting AFC Richmond’s new soccer team, the Lady Greyhounds. It’s nothing we haven’t seen from her character or the show before. Meanwhile, Hannah Waddingham’s Rebecca feels so underutilized in her dual stories I sort of can’t believe it. She splits her time between the most boring relationship in history and her fears over the economic feasibility of her new football club.
Brendan Hunt’s Coach Beard is also back and dealing with an old problem, his abusive relationship with Jane. It will either work for you or it won’t. It mostly doesn’t for me, but at least he gets to have fun with some truly over-the-top scenes.
Coaches Beard and Lasso talk to a player at training in a still from ted Lasso season 4
Apple TV
As for Ted… he’s there. He’s there. He doesn’t have much of an arc, but he sure is charming just being a football manager again. Technically his son is also there with him in London, as the show makes sure he doesn’t abandon his child after that was so important to him returning home at the end of season three. But once his son and ex-wife both move across the pond with him, Ted Lasso basically abandons any sort of father and son relationship so it can focus on the coaching part of Ted’s life. It’s ridiculous but also fine. It’s more fun watching Ted deal with his players than his kid.
That might all sound relatively boring, and it is, but the Lady Greyhounds do give the show a much needed new energy. They have much different problems than the (invisible) men’s team. The new characters also have, by default, the most interesting storylines because they are new. They’re not all treading old ground or running in place like the returning stars.
The absolute standout of Ted Lasso season four is newcomer Tanya Reynolds. She’s easily the best part of the first five episodes. She plays the rough, overly serious assistant manager, Alice Chilton. Coach Chilton is dryly funny and the perfect foil for Jason Sudeikis’s overly folksy Ted (who is always at his best when he has a non-believer to play off). She also is clearly hurting under her ever-cracking service, which provides natural opportunities for Ted’s enduring goodness to shine through without it feeling forced. Reynolds is part of most of my favorite moments from the first half of the season and I’m excited to see where her story goes. The same is true for the Lady Greyhounds, who are an interesting bunch.
Ted Lasso pointing out at the pitch as Tanya Reynolds looks on skeptically
Apple TV
The other great new addition is, no surprise, Tracey Ullman. She’s a whirlwind of barely controlled chaotic energy. I was happy every time she appeared on screen and can’t wait to see more from her. The show does a great job establishing her as a fascinating character while teasing even more interesting developments.
Good, bad, and lots of in-between, that’s Ted Lasso season four. It’s not a return to form, but it’s clearly also trying to fix many of the problems that sank it before. It just does so with mixed results. The result is a TV show that is absolutely fine. Whether or not you’ll be happy with that depends on if you were expecting more or less than that.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He thinks Ted Lasso should let Hannah Waddingham be silly a lot more often. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
This article first appeared on Nerdist and was syndicated with permission.
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