Ted Lasso: The Life Coach We Need

Anglo-American "Com-Dram" at its Finest

It is the worst of times, and these days it's even worse than that.

For those of us who live in the depressive mode, my default setting is melancholy, at best. On a pretty good day, I'm shadowed by mild sorrows that sometimes can't be defined. Through sobriety, therapy, and the right medication, I've learned to try to live through these moments, because the other options are regret about the past (depression), or fear of the future (anxiety).

But I have found a temporary treatment that works, one I had avoided for reasons I don't understand. I have embraced Ted Lasso, the multi-Emmy award winning streaming series on Apple TV. I'm delighted to have just finished season one, because that means we have seasons two and three still to watch. If you're already a Ted Lasso fan, apologies: better late than never.

IMDB calls it a comedy drama, the proper informal term for which is dramedy. But it's more com-dram to me, more funny than sad, because you know that the sad parts will soon give way to laughs, or someone getting laid, by habit or beyond any expectation.

The problem with comedy these days is that it is not funny, at least not to me or very often. So I turn the whole idea on its head and get my jollies from watching streaming murder shows from as many different countries as possible: I think my next career will be as a coroner in Copenhagen. We just finished Inside Man on Netflix, starring Stanley Tucci as a brilliant sociopath on Death Row somewhere in the desert southwest who murdered and decapitated his wife. He takes on clients to solve their problems while awaiting sentencing, and one of them involves an ongoing torment in England featuring David Tennant (my favorite "Doctor Who") as a manipulative and psychopathic vicar. Lots of laughs!

I also recommend the delectable Annika, on PBS Masterpiece, starring Nicola Walker as the literary, fourth-wall breaking Detective Inspector for the Glasgow Marine Homicide unit. I also just finished the second season (and strongly recommend) The Chelsea Detective, starring Adrian Scarborough as DI Max Arnold, who solves murders in the posh London district in which he is based. It's on Acorn TV. In a short Q&A in today's New York Times, Nicola Walker talks about the appeal of true crime podcasts (one of her obsessions) and why we watch crime dramas: "the comfort of watching something that terrifies you and seeing it resolved makes you feel a little bit safer."

The premise of Ted Lasso, the show, is that the successful coach of lower-level American college football team is hired by the wily owner of the fictional Richmond F.C. to coach its always disappointing Premier League team. Lasso knows American football, but nothing about soccer. He is bound to fail. (Think of The Producers).

Lasso is played with folksy, aw-shucks charm and relentless optimism by Jason Sudeikis, who is also one of the co-creators.

Lasso's assumed failure is intentional. The owner of the team via divorce settlement, Rebecca Weldon (played ice cold on the surface but potential for salvation via the Lasso method by a marvelous Hannah Widdingham), is suffering through an ego-crushing front-page-of the-U.K.-tabloids taunting. Her ex is a rich bastard who loves Richmond more than he loves anything, except perhaps himself, his money, and the joy he feels humiliating Rebecca with his extravagantly public affairs.

The genius of the Premier League is that the three teams at the bottom of the table, or standings, get relegated to the second division of British soccer. The lower status second division is known as the English Football League Championship, a moniker which, like the English preference to tea, baffles Lasso.

It's such a wonderful idea, because towards the end of a long, lousy season, the league's weaker teams have to compete like hell to avoid relegation. I thought, why not have that in baseball, in which the last team in each division has to play the next season in Triple A! It would make September so much more exciting. I really did think of that before I watched the tenth and final episode of season one, in which relegation is explained to Ted and he comes to the same conclusion, albeit with his funnier, filter-free, stream of consciousness insights.

How important is English football on a musical level? In 1976, Elton John was made hoped to bring his beloved Watford F.C. from the fourth division, the absolute bottom of the many British football sub-leagues. He bought the team, became its chairman and president (Watford rose to the Premier League for one season, 1999-2000) and performed concerts at its 30,000-seat stadium, Vicarage Road, and has continued to do so as recently as 2022.

Ted comes to Richmond with no idea how soccer is played. His loyal American sidekick Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) comes with him, and knows slightly more. The soccer strategy and knowledge comes form the undersized and perenially bullied equipment manager Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed), to whom no one ever listened to before, not even his mother, most likely. There's the bad blood between the just-about over the hill former star Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and the egomaniac on-and-off the pitch, Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), a 23 year old with the maturity of a three year old whose soccer talents are matched only by his prodigious sexual appetites and appeal. Juno Temple (Keeley Jones) plays Tartt's regular (he keeps a topless magazine pin-up of her in his locker), and she becomes the teams PR and marketing director.

The “Tao of Ted” is that he makes everyone around him “believe,” to quote the sign he puts up in the dysfunctional team locker room. He’s like Rocky & Bullwinkle always side-stepping the malevolent intentions of Boris & Natasha.

That's most of the starting lineup, at least in season one. But we do need to acknowledge football writer "Ted Crimm of the Independent" (James Lance), who announces himself precisely that way at every press conference. T.C. of the I. is the most condescending, least-self-effacing of the sports writers covering Richmond, and for a day, Crimm shadows Ted Lasso is an entire episode. Owner Weldon thought Crimm would crucify Ted just for pleasure. Instead, Lasso charms Crimm, and another attempt at undermining the coach fails.

The fan base is not happy with Lasso, and Ted is only slightly unruffled when the entire home stadium breaks out in the chant of "Wanker! Wanker!" when he makes his first entrance. But then when Richmond unexpectedly wins a match, the chant changes to the more rhythmic and appreciative "Wan-ker! Wan-ker!" Lasso is intuitive enough to note the difference.

The soundtrack, as one might imagine, uses plenty of rock and pop. There are official soundtrack albums featuring the title theme, sung by Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons, co-written with Tom Howe. Spotify has a playlist with about 280 songs compiled by a true obsessive. I don't know if there's that much music, but the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" appears in the first season's first episode, and "Anarchy in the U.K." graces season two.

At a karaoke night, in episode seven, season one, the Nigerian player Sam Obisanya crushes Oasis' "Wonderwall," the chess-playing Coach Beard tops out Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," and Rebecca Weldon, melting in front of our eyes, does beautiful things with Idina Menzel's "Let It Go." And Coach Lasso calls his brain trust the "Diamond Dogs." Watch (it's the title of episode 8, season one) and Bowie fans will be rewarded. But it's hard to beat the deployment in episode six ("Two Aces") of the Yardbirds' "Over Under Sideways Down." Made me yearn for the Yardbirds to take a long absent spin around the turntable.