
Better Off Ted
Better Off Ted is an American satirical sitcom series, created by Victor Fresco, who also served as the show's executive producer. The series ran on the ABC network from March 18, 2009, to January 26, 2010.[5]
Better Off Ted
Jay Harrington
- Chris Alan Lee
- Scott Clausen
United States
English
2
26 (2 unaired in the U.S.)
Victor Fresco
- Marc Solakian
- Skip Beaudine
- Lisa Bromwell
- Robert Bramwell
- Peter Beyt
21 minutes
- Garfield Grove Productions
- 20th Century Fox Television
- ABC (episodes 1-24)
- Network Ten (episodes 25-26)
March 18, 2009
August 24, 2010
Better Off Ted focuses on the protagonist, Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), a single father and the well-respected and beloved head of a research and development department at the fictional, soulless conglomerate of Veridian Dynamics. Ted narrates the series' events by regularly breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the audience on camera. Supporting characters include Ted's supervisor Veronica Palmer (Portia de Rossi), co-worker and love interest Linda Zwordling (Andrea Anders), his daughter Rose (Isabella Acres), and laboratory scientists Phillip Myman (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem Hewitt (Malcolm Barrett).
The series received critical acclaim, with particular praise going towards its witty and satirical humor. Its second season holds a score of 84 out of 100 on Metacritic. However, despite such positive feedback, the show's debut drew in only 5.64 million viewers and continued to have extremely low ratings.[6] Although many expressed skepticism that it would return, it was renewed for a second season.[7] On May 13, 2010, ABC officially canceled the series due to low viewing figures.[8] Two episodes that went unaired in the United States were broadcast in international markets and are available to view on Hulu, digital stores, and home video.[9]
Plot[edit]
Better Off Ted is a satirical workplace comedy, centred around the employees of a stereotypically evil megacorporation of Veridian Dynamics.
Veridian Dynamics experiments on its employees, twists the truth, and will stop at nothing to achieve its goals. It has been mentioned that Veridian has swayed presidential elections, created killer pandas and robots, and weaponized pumpkins, and that there are only three governments left in the world more powerful than Veridian. Although not promoted as such, and rarely the focus of storylines, the show's frequent references to futuristic technologies, killer robots, sentient computers, etc., places Better Off Ted partly in the futuristic comedy genre.
Most of the characters are fully aware of Veridian's nature, and often try to manipulate the system in order to stop bad things from happening to them (and sometimes to mitigate the evil effects of some of Veridian's projects). They are also all susceptible to the potential rewards the company can offer despite the consequences of their actions, such as the company's attempt to hire Lem's mother, or the company's introduction of scented light bulbs with known flaws. Much of the comedy of the show comes from the characters' navigation of these morally ambiguous areas.
Jay Harrington, who plays Ted Crisp on the show, serves both as a main character and as an on-camera narrator.[10] Throughout the show, he breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to viewers, offering inside information and observations while the action continues around him. Another plot element involves the use of mock commercials for Veridian Dynamics, thematically related to individual episodes and placed at the end or beginning of actual commercial breaks in most episodes.[10]
Production[edit]
Origin[edit]
Victor Fresco, the show's creator, has cited his being a new parent as inspiration for the show.[14] In an interview with NPR, he discussed how having a kid piqued his interest to develop a show about the disconnection between a person's public and personal lives, such as how parents teach their kids to be moral, yet work for giant corporations.[14] According to Fresco, Ted Crisp is the single father and his daughter serves as his moral compass.[14] Fresco stated that since he's worked for a few giant companies, he didn't base Veridian Dynamics on any specific corporation.[10] The show's name was based on the idea that a person is better off if they are Ted, that essentially the average person wants to be Ted.[15] Fresco has stated that he wasn't a fan of the show's title, but hadn't spoken of changing it.[15]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Critics have praised Better Off Ted's witty and satirical humour, as well as its cast. According to Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the show's first season holds a score of 68 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on 21 reviews.[20] Misha Davenport of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote favorably of the show, comparing its characters to those of the highly acclaimed show Arrested Development.[20] Linda Stasi of the New York Post gave the show three-and-a-half out of four stars, lauding the cast and simply referring to it as "a very funny comedy".[21] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the show a B+, stating "'Better Off Ted' is certainly the most original sitcom to come along in a while."[22] Robert Bianco from USA Today referred to the show as "well-cast and reasonably entertaining."[23]
After returning for a second season, the show became even more acclaimed and is considered by some critics to be a vast improvement on its first.[24] On Metacritic, it holds a score of 84 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 11 reviews.[24] Linda Stasi of the New York Post gave the show's second season a perfect score, calling it "hilarious and even funnier this year than last."[12] Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle also gave the show's second season a perfect score, praising the show's return, saying it "means there's finally something good (and funny) on Tuesday nights."[25] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the show's return an A−, stating "Thank goodness Better Off Ted has returned intact. I love everything about this show, from star Jay Harrington's delivery of Ted's straight-man lines with WASP ramrod posture to the show's up-front critiques of corporate capitalism."[26]
Ratings[edit]
The show's pilot episode averaged a total of 5.64 million viewers,[6] which made it ABC's lowest-rated comedy debut since 2005.[27] The show's first season continued to experience both a drop and mild fluctuation in ratings, taking in only 2.41 million for its finale.[28] After being renewed, the show's second season premiered to a low 3.82 million viewers.[29]
Reunions[edit]
In mid-2011 series co-star Malcolm Barrett released his first single, "Revenge of the Nerds" under his alternate performance name, Verbal. The official music video for the song, released in June 2011, reunited all the major cast members of Better Off Ted, although only Barrett, Slavin and de Rossi reprised their original series characters (Harrington and Anders appear as a high school jock and a cheerleader, respectively, while series creator Victor Fresco also appears in the video).[53] Barrett's recording is also included on the soundtrack of the final episode of Better Off Ted, "Swag the Dog."
In 2020, the cast virtually reunited for a table read of an episode and moderated discussion to raise money for Feeding America.[54]