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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

March 18, 2009 (2009-03-18) –
August 24, 2010 (2010-08-24)

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]

as Theodore Margaret "Ted" Crisp: Ted is the titular character, and also the show's narrator. He is the senior vice-president of the Research and Development department at Veridian Dynamics,[1][11] and is well respected and loved by most of the employees – and even members of the otherwise difficult upper management. He balances his desire to maintain his position at the company with his feeling that he must demonstrate a moral center to his daughter. He has had sexual relations with his immediate supervisor, although she remains emotionally distant. He also has interest in Linda, who was a new hire to Veridian Dynamics at the launch of the series.

Jay Harrington

as Veronica Palmer: Veronica is Ted's boss and immediate supervisor at Veridian Dynamics.[1] She maintains a fierce and unapproachable workplace demeanor, and many employees have a deep fear of her.[11] She seems cold and calculating, but it is also clear that she has more than grudging respect for Ted, and often recognizes what moral action is necessary to maintain balance in the workplace. An ongoing subplot touched on sporadically in the first season but more frequently in the second sees Veronica becoming a mentor to Linda and, to a lesser degree, Rose.

Portia de Rossi

as Linda Katherine Zwordling: Linda is a tester in one of Veridian's departments.[12] She finds herself very attracted to Ted, but maintains other relationships and reminds Ted repeatedly that he has rejected the idea of a workplace romance with her. She seems to be a bit of an outsider to the corporate culture.[12] Often she demands that Ted consider the horrible ramifications of the company policies or activities. Her relationship with the scientists is strained by her rejection of the weird things they do in the name of science. Despite this, she finds herself increasingly looking at Veronica as a mentor as the series progresses.

Andrea Anders

as Dr. Philip "Phil" Myman: Phil is one of the laboratory scientists in Veridian's Research Department.[11] He is usually working or hanging out with Lem, who works with him on almost every project. He generally does whatever he can to be accepted and avoid conflicts. He is married, and makes frequent references to his wife, who seems to hate him. In season 2's episode 6, "Beating a Dead Workforce", we learn she was a member of Mossad.

Jonathan Slavin

as Dr. Lem Hewitt: Lem is one of the laboratory scientists in Veridian's Research Department.[11] He is best friends with his lab partner Phil, who works with him on almost every project. Lem is just as conflict-averse as Phil, and seems just as willing to roll over and take whatever abuse the company has to offer. He grew up in the shadow of his mother (Khandi Alexander) a renowned scientist.

Malcolm Barrett

as Rose Crisp: Rose is Ted's daughter.[13] She attends the Veridian Dynamics daycare program when her nanny is not available, but prefers to stay at home. According to Ted, "her mom ran off to Africa to go save the world." She is often the voice of reason on the show. When Ted talks with her about work she points out the terrible choices the company makes, and often helps Ted focus on what needs to be done to set things straight. She attends Eugene Debs Elementary School. In season 2, she tells Veronica that she's 8 years old.

Isabella Acres

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]

at IMDb

Better Off Ted