REVIEW #11 Ted Lasso (2020)

Another Apple TV series review today!

Ted Lasso follows a small time American Football coach who is hired as the manager for a Premier League football team in England. As a manager with no knowledge about the game, we follow him as he tries to win over his critics and help the team avoid relegation.

CAST & THE ACTING 

I think everyone will know the lead actor in this series, Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses, We’re the Millers). He has a track record for hilariously funny films and the production team clearly wanted to take advantage of that and inject this series with the same kind of energy. The rest of the cast is made up of relatively lesser known English actors such as Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein and Nick Mohammed. Ted Lasso rather surprised me, after reading the description of the series I was expecting a goofy, silly football ‘spoof’ with little substance at all and although I was half right, this series did have it’s moments where it showed real depth and emotion. The acting wasn’t fantastic but I think that was meant to be the case, clearly over exaggerating certain character stereotypes to draw out the comedy. 

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

I think the the overall plot for the series is rather silly and wouldn’t usually justify a 7.5 out of 10. However it’s as the storyline unfolds, that it then recover the score. It did manage to really draw me in and using sub plots such as Ted’s marriage troubles and players emotional stability really helped add some much needed substance to the storyline. Obviously it is still meant to be a comedy spoof so it’s not like the plot is going to win the series an Oscar any time soon, but I got what I expected so I think the score is justified. The comedy did shine through and the more emotional moments was a nice touch by the writers. I also like how they did use real Premier League teams as opponents for the fictional team AFC Richmond, that was a nice touch.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

There were no special effects used because it wasn’t needed but what I felt let this series down is the cinematography for the actual football games. You have seen this style used in many other football based films/series and to be honest, I’m just not a fan of it. It doesn’t capture the game well. Maybe that’s me being a little harsh, they can’t exactly make it seem like a real football game, they’re using actors after all but I still feel like it could have been better. 

OVERALL (7.1/10)

I did enjoy Ted Lasso and I will be watching the second series when it is released but it was pretty average. Don’t get me wrong it was funny but I think perhaps not as funny as I thought it was going to be, considering Jason Sudeikis’ track record with successful comedies. I must say it does seem different to everything that’s out there at the moment, I can’t really think of anything that has a similar storyline, which I find quite refreshing. I would say give it a watch and make your own judgment!

Thank you for reading!

Callan