When Ted Lasso wrapped its original three-season arc in mid-2023, the world was in a different place.
In the time since Ted Lasso was off-air, quite a few more stressors have emerged – Donald Trump returned to the now more-gilded White House, fuel prices are doing crazy things because no one actually knows what’s going on with the Strait of Hormuz, non-football fans now know who Gianni Infantino is, and Israel and Palestine are constantly in the news.
Oh, and looksmaxxing is something which entered the mainstream conversation. How great.
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Ted Lasso can’t possibly save us from all our collective anxieties, can it?
The first two seasons of the Jason Sudeikis series became one of the defining cultural moments of the COVID-era, landing just as locked-down viewers uncertain about their futures found great comfort in the show’s commitment to kindness and decency.
It’s not that the show was super gentle and coddled you, there was conflict, and some of it were serious explorations of mental health and repressed trauma. But its philosophy was encapsulated in that askew yellow and blue sign which hung above Ted’s office: BELIEVE.
Ted Lasso is on Apple TV. Credit: Apple TV
It was a calling card, and it spoke to an unyielding optimism that many people have lost touch with.
Is that the value of Ted Lasso in 2026? To remind us to hold onto that core tenet of idealism, to believe and trust that people are generally good.
The third, and at the time likely final, season ended with all the key characters’ story arcs largely wrapped up. They had grown and changed over Ted Lasso’s run, and all ready for the next adventure.
Ted had returned to Kansas to spend more time with his son, and everyone else was going to carry on, having been changed by Ted. The narrative hint of where a future instalment could go, the proposal for a women’s football team at AFC Richmond, is exactly where the story picks up.
Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley (Juno Temple) and Higgins (Jeremy Swift) go to Kansas to make their pitch to Ted (Sudeikis), and discovering the delights of baseball and barbecue, to return to London.
When he does, he discovers a fledgling team full of personalities (Faye Marsay, Aisling Sharkey among them), and an assistant coach, Alice (Tanya Reynolds), who has been passed over for the top job in favour of him.
While the series started with no one taking Ted seriously, the challenge is now to establish and build a women’s team that so many are ready to dismissive – and it’s not a just cultural thing, it’s also financial.
Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham in the fourth season of Ted Lasso. Credit: Apple TV
So, it is a familiar set-up, but with a new ensemble of secondary characters in the women’s players, the fourth season balances the demands of more of what everyone already loves, which is those original characters interacting with each other, with something fresh.
It’s in no way a radical departure from the earlier seasons, and that’s what the fans want, those recognisable pleasures they remember.
That also includes Brendan Hunt’s Coach Beard and Brett Goldstein’s Roy Kent, and there are pop-ins from Richmond citizens such as Mae (Annette Badland), the pub owner, and the trio of hardcore team fans (Adam Colborne, Bronson Webb and Kevin Garry), as well as Roy’s niece Phoebe (Elodie Blomfield).
But, at least in the first four episodes made available for review, we won’t be seeing the Richmond men’s team nor Nick Mohammed’s Nate Shelley.
This new instalment of Ted Lasso is what it should be, that signature blend of warmth, humour and occasional goofiness. There’s a new story, but the vibe is still the same.
And that’s exactly what we’re here for. Ted Lasso won’t save the world, but at least it’ll make us feel a little bit better about it, for 40 minutes at a time.
Ted Lasso is streaming on Apple TV with new episodes weekly
