'Ted Lasso' Can't Save Us This Time

It’s so corny when you think about it now. But in the prime bleakness of the pandemic, the darkest time of my adulthood, there was something radical about such a simple thing: a handwritten sign that said “BELIEVE” in the TV show Ted Lasso.

The success of the Apple TV series was such an of-its-time phenomenon that, by the third season of its original run just a few years later, the show’s pureness and optimism weren’t just exhausted; they were points of ridicule.

So the arrival of a fourth season, in a time when society is careening high-speed down the mountain where the endpoint is extreme cynicism, would seemingly be doomed. We’ve all moved on. We don’t have a Ted Lasso era in us anymore.

To me, that’s what makes this new season of the show so interesting.

The vibes, for lack of a better word, of Ted Lasso are so out of place and out of step with where we are right now. It’s that strangeness that makes the new episodes of the show actually fascinating to watch.