[7.3/10] Solid pilot. It sells the premise of the show well. We’re doing The Producer except for sports. Extrapolating the silliness of a mid-major football coach being brought over to head up an English Premier League team to a full show is a trick, but the writers come up with a decent way to have it make a strange sort of sense.
I’m most intrigued by the character of Ted Lasso himself. He’s basically a cartoon character in the early going, and I could see his “hayseed full of cliches” routine running thin pretty quick. But they do a few things to humanize him and make him into an actual character and not just a caricature from sports channel bumpers.
Most conspicuously, they make him someone going through a separation from his wife and son. It adds a whiff of pathos to an otherwise inveterately upbeat persona. They also make him a kind and considerate person, asking people how they are and treating them with a certain compassion that most don’t seem used to.
That seems to be the core theme of the show in the early going. Ted may not know much about the sport, and he may only have been hired to drive something the former owner loved into the ground, but he cares about people, treats them like human beings. It opens some eyes, from Nathan the groundskeeper, to Keeley the WAG, to even Ms. Welton the owner, who’s taken aback when Ted asks how she’s dealing with the divorce. It’s not hard to see the outline of Ted’s kindness giving these players what they need in an unexpected way, but it’s a solid foundation for the show.
I also like Ms.s Wleton as a character. She’s sharp-elbowed debut self-possessed in a way that makes her compelling. Her being two-faced with Ted isn't ideal, but there’s gotta be room to grow, and you have to start somewhere.
Otherwise, this is mostly table-setting and silliness. We get thumbnail sketches of the important players, a start to Ted’s assistant coach, Coach Beard, and Ms. Welton’s morally reluctant assistant. We get the sense of the media and common fan’s reaction to the absurdity of an American football coach being brought over to manage a big time soccer team. The basics are all covered.
My only major complaint is that I didn’t really laugh at any of this. Some of Ted’s cornpone sayings are worth a smile, and there’s a few mildly clever bits. But there weren’t a ton of yuks in this opening episode. Maybe that's to be expected with so much premise-setting ground to cover.
Overall, this is a solid but unspectacular start to the show, but it sets up a good foundation of characters and plots to build on, if not as much overwhelming comedy out of the gate.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-25T01:39:40Z
[7.3/10] Solid pilot. It sells the premise of the show well. We’re doing The Producer except for sports. Extrapolating the silliness of a mid-major football coach being brought over to head up an English Premier League team to a full show is a trick, but the writers come up with a decent way to have it make a strange sort of sense.
I’m most intrigued by the character of Ted Lasso himself. He’s basically a cartoon character in the early going, and I could see his “hayseed full of cliches” routine running thin pretty quick. But they do a few things to humanize him and make him into an actual character and not just a caricature from sports channel bumpers.
Most conspicuously, they make him someone going through a separation from his wife and son. It adds a whiff of pathos to an otherwise inveterately upbeat persona. They also make him a kind and considerate person, asking people how they are and treating them with a certain compassion that most don’t seem used to.
That seems to be the core theme of the show in the early going. Ted may not know much about the sport, and he may only have been hired to drive something the former owner loved into the ground, but he cares about people, treats them like human beings. It opens some eyes, from Nathan the groundskeeper, to Keeley the WAG, to even Ms. Welton the owner, who’s taken aback when Ted asks how she’s dealing with the divorce. It’s not hard to see the outline of Ted’s kindness giving these players what they need in an unexpected way, but it’s a solid foundation for the show.
I also like Ms.s Wleton as a character. She’s sharp-elbowed debut self-possessed in a way that makes her compelling. Her being two-faced with Ted isn't ideal, but there’s gotta be room to grow, and you have to start somewhere.
Otherwise, this is mostly table-setting and silliness. We get thumbnail sketches of the important players, a start to Ted’s assistant coach, Coach Beard, and Ms. Welton’s morally reluctant assistant. We get the sense of the media and common fan’s reaction to the absurdity of an American football coach being brought over to manage a big time soccer team. The basics are all covered.
My only major complaint is that I didn’t really laugh at any of this. Some of Ted’s cornpone sayings are worth a smile, and there’s a few mildly clever bits. But there weren’t a ton of yuks in this opening episode. Maybe that's to be expected with so much premise-setting ground to cover.
Overall, this is a solid but unspectacular start to the show, but it sets up a good foundation of characters and plots to build on, if not as much overwhelming comedy out of the gate.