6 Years Ago, Apple TV Released a Viral Feel-Good TV Show With Unforgettable Characters, and Its Sequel Just Arrived
Apple TV has built a reputation as the primary home of prestige science fiction, with Severance, For All Mankind, Silo, Pluribus, Murderbot, and many others earning strong critical acclaim and audience numbers that ensure their continuity. The platform’s upcoming adaptation of Neuromancer, William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk novel that helped originate the genre, is bound to increase the streamer’s fame, especially since Gibson himself already vouched for it. However, one of Apple TV’s biggest successes actually came from a completely different genre, a sports comedy that turned into a word-of-mouth phenomenon within its first season.
Ted Lasso debuted on Apple TV on August 14, 2020, developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly, building on a character Sudeikis had originated years earlier in a series of NBC Sports promos. The story follows Ted Lasso (Sudeikis), an American college football coach hired to manage AFC Richmond, a struggling Premier League club. Team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) recruits Ted despite his having no experience with soccer, hoping his incompetence will sabotage the club as revenge against her unfaithful ex-husband. The setting leads both to highly comedic situations based on Ted’s obliviousness to soccer, but also to dramatic development, as all of Richmond’s characters are affected by Ted’s unique perspective on life. The show ran for three seasons through 2023 and collected 13 Emmy Awards over that run, including back-to-back wins for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2021 and 2022, a rare achievement for a freshman comedy on a new streaming platform.
Ted Lasso‘s Optimism and Unique Characters Made the Show Viral
While television comedy often leans on cynicism and irony, Ted Lasso‘s insistence on sincerity became its defining trait. Ted’s relentless kindness toward people who mock or underestimate him, paired with his belief that personal growth matters more than winning, set the series apart from other prestige dramas. For instance, Ted’s habit of leaving handwritten “Believe” posters in the locker room and homemade biscuits for people who had wronged him became a recurring symbol of his refusal to meet hostility with hostility. That kind of optimistic message was exactly what people needed at the height of the pandemic, when we were all locked inside our homes and struggling to find meaning in life.
The ensemble surrounding Sudeikis proved just as important for the show’s lasting appeal. For instance, Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), the gruff veteran captain whose vulnerability slowly surfaced beneath his explosive temper, became one of the most quoted characters on television. Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) evolved from a background love interest into a fully realized businesswoman navigating her own ambitions, while Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) offered a running mystery through his surprising past experiences and unwavering loyalty to Ted. Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed) delivered the show’s most dramatic transformation, moving from an overlooked kit man to a bitter antagonist before circling back toward redemption by the finale. Together, these arcs gave Ted Lasso depth, being the reason fans kept discussing individual characters and quoting their lines after each episode.
Ted Lasso Is Trying a Dangerous TV Pivot
Season 3 of Ted Lasso closed with Ted returning home to Kansas City to be near his son, after Richmond won the championship. The end felt final for most characters involved, and for years it seemed the series had come to a close. Then, whispers became official announcements, and Ted Lasso returned on August 5, 2026, sending its title character back to Richmond, this time to coach the club’s newly formed second-division women’s team alongside new assistant coach Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds). The new season holds a critic score near 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, yet its Metacritic rating sits at 62, the lowest mark of the show’s run and 11 points below its previous floor. Much of the criticism centers on how underdeveloped the new team’s characters feel, leaving the season feeling like a spinoff wearing the original show’s name rather than a natural continuation.
Sudeikis has publicly denied that the women’s team storyline began life as a separate spinoff project, saying the pivot only became the plan once the creative team settled on a reason for Ted to return to England. Still, television history offers a warning against reviving a finished story around a mostly new cast. The most famous example of how badly this kind of pivot can alienate fans is Scrubs‘ ninth season, nicknamed Med School, which shifted focus toward a group of incoming students instead of the original doctors audiences had followed for eight seasons. Reception was so bad that when Scrubs returned for a 2025 revival, the creative team erased the entire season from the show’s canon, treating those thirteen episodes as an alternate timeline that never happened. Ted Lasso‘s fourth season is still airing its weekly episodes and has plenty of opportunity to charm fans. Hopefully the pivot will fare better than other shows. Believe.
Ted Lasso Season 4 is currently streaming on Apple TV, with new episodes releasing every Wednesday through October 7.
