I was shocked to discover the other day that one of my favorite current TV shows, Better Off Ted, was actually being renewed! The show debuted on ABC in the spring, ran for a few weeks with middling ratings, then was yanked during the May sweeps, never a good sign. The network brought it back to finish its run this summer and the ratings were dismal, so I had just assumed it was dead in the water, but several reliable sources note that it is returning with an 18-episode order in January, 2010.
The half-hour sitcom (my favorite TV genre, though one that gets little respect these days) is set at a huge conglomerate called Veridian Dynamics for whom money comes first, and worries about whether a product will cause mutations in babies come second (if at all). Ted (Jay Harrington) is a fairly sweet (but not sappy) single father who holds a high position in research and development. His boss, Veronica (Portia de Rossi) is a tightly wound company woman for whom lying and displacing blame is second nature. We discovered late in the season that the two had a brief, torrid office affair, and this is presumably why Ted is reluctant to open a new can of relationship worms with Linda (Andrea Anders, pictured), the new gal in the office, though there are certainly sparks between the two.
The situations these three get into are amusing, but the secret weapons of the show, for my money, are Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett), the geeky researchers who, like the nerdy Sheldon and Leonard, read a little gay to me, though Phil is married and Lem dates women. It's through them that we are introduced to the crazy product schemes, such as beef without cows or an office chair designed for better productivity--it's so uncomfortably itchy, no one can sit in it for long. My favorite episode involved an error in the building's security system--it won't recognize black people, so white people have to follow the black employees around so they can get from room to room. In another episode, Phil and Lem invite Ted to their geeky Medieval battle club which meets in the basement once a week, and the cool, collected Ted begins to outgeek them all.
I admit I was drawn to the show by the handsome Harrington, who was about the only good thing in the American version of Coupling. He is sexy and funny, and his casual delivery (often directly to the camera) carries the show. I liked the wholesomely sexy Anders in the Friends spinoff Joey and she's just as charming here. De Rossi (at right) is fantastic, almost as good as she was in Arrested Development. The show seems to be done on a relatively cheap budget, but it always looks sharp. I admit I'd like a goofy guest star once in a while, and they probably don't have the money for that, but I'm quite happy that the show is getting a second chance. The first season is over, but it looks like the last few episodes are available for viewing on ABC's web site. Let's hope this breaks out as it deserves.
I was shocked to discover the other day that one of my favorite current TV shows, Better Off Ted, was actually being renewed! The show debuted on ABC in the spring, ran for a few weeks with middling ratings, then was yanked during the May sweeps, never a good sign. The network brought it back to finish its run this summer and the ratings were dismal, so I had just assumed it was dead in the water, but several reliable sources note that it is returning with an 18-episode order in January, 2010.
The half-hour sitcom (my favorite TV genre, though one that gets little respect these days) is set at a huge conglomerate called Veridian Dynamics for whom money comes first, and worries about whether a product will cause mutations in babies come second (if at all). Ted (Jay Harrington) is a fairly sweet (but not sappy) single father who holds a high position in research and development. His boss, Veronica (Portia de Rossi) is a tightly wound company woman for whom lying and displacing blame is second nature. We discovered late in the season that the two had a brief, torrid office affair, and this is presumably why Ted is reluctant to open a new can of relationship worms with Linda (Andrea Anders, pictured), the new gal in the office, though there are certainly sparks between the two.
The situations these three get into are amusing, but the secret weapons of the show, for my money, are Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett), the geeky researchers who, like the nerdy Sheldon and Leonard, read a little gay to me, though Phil is married and Lem dates women. It's through them that we are introduced to the crazy product schemes, such as beef without cows or an office chair designed for better productivity--it's so uncomfortably itchy, no one can sit in it for long. My favorite episode involved an error in the building's security system--it won't recognize black people, so white people have to follow the black employees around so they can get from room to room. In another episode, Phil and Lem invite Ted to their geeky Medieval battle club which meets in the basement once a week, and the cool, collected Ted begins to outgeek them all.
I admit I was drawn to the show by the handsome Harrington, who was about the only good thing in the American version of Coupling. He is sexy and funny, and his casual delivery (often directly to the camera) carries the show. I liked the wholesomely sexy Anders in the Friends spinoff Joey and she's just as charming here. De Rossi (at right) is fantastic, almost as good as she was in Arrested Development. The show seems to be done on a relatively cheap budget, but it always looks sharp. I admit I'd like a goofy guest star once in a while, and they probably don't have the money for that, but I'm quite happy that the show is getting a second chance. The first season is over, but it looks like the last few episodes are available for viewing on ABC's web site. Let's hope this breaks out as it deserves.
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