Even before the pandemic, the viewership for award shows, ranging from the Oscars to the MTV Video Music Awards, was already in free fall. In the past five years, the Golden Globes were down 63%, and the Billboard Music Awards show was down 72%. The coronavirus only accelerated the phenomenon, with hostless award shows of tone-deaf celebrities leading to record numbers with literally nothing better to do than watch television deciding to tune out anyway.
Yet, the Emmy Awards rebounded from last year’s all-time low with a 16% gain in viewership, even as other award shows continue to post dreadful numbers. The explanation is simple. The Emmys celebrated shows people actually watched, and one show more than any other explains just how the silver screen and streaming have kept their fingers on the pulses of audiences, even as other mediums free-fall into irrelevance. That show is Apple TV+’s breakout comedy, Ted Lasso. (Only broad spoilers for season one follow, so those who are catching up on season two can feel free to read ahead.)
In no way does Ted Lasso reinvent the wheel. The conceit (one-part workplace comedy, one-part sports saga) is one as old as television itself. The eponymous protagonist is a naive, unsophisticated American dropped into the cobbled streets of Richmond, England, and the surrounding cast of characters includes stiff upper lips and the busty wives of soccer stars. Season one begins with Rebecca Welton bringing Lasso, previously an American football coach with zero experience in soccer, to coach AFC Richmond, which she recently acquired as a part of her divorce settlement. Welton, who is hurt by her ex-husband abandoning her for a younger woman, intends for Lasso to drive the team to ruin, but despite his lack of technical prowess, Lasso’s folksy ways strengthen the team’s resolve, even if not its record.
Again, there’s nothing revolutionary or even terribly interesting about that. And yet, that’s not how it was received.
Ted Lasso catapulted Apple TV+ to the top tier of streaming services and became a top 10 streaming show across all platforms this year. Although television suffers far less from the disconnect between critics and audiences that plagues film, Ted Lasso did stand out as the increasingly rare fan-and-pundit favorite that is fun, if you can get over the British penchant for more than the occasional F-bomb, for nearly the whole family. (Sex is obviously a part of the off-screen plot, but after Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad dominating the discourse for over a decade, Ted Lasso is probably more PG than PG-13 at this point.)
The Crown, Emmy-bait by design, was expected to sweep the Emmys thanks to its fictionalizations of Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher and Oscar-quality funding and production. But it was Ted Lasso that set the tone for the evening. With the most nominations of any freshman comedy, the hit won outstanding comedy series, outstanding lead actor for a comedy series, outstanding supporting actor for a comedy series, and outstanding supporting actress for a comedy series. Articles celebrating the comeback of the Emmys didn’t lead with photos of The Crown cast — they all boasted the Lasso gang, and with good reason, namely that Ted Lasso proved that nice guys can actually finish first.
The antihero archetype of Tony Soprano and Don Draper gave way to the Golden Age of Television, but with the side effect of corroding comedy in the process. The tired formula of hackneyed sitcoms such as the Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men had to die, but rather than draw from the complexity of new dramas to create smarter comedies, writers simply pulled the most superficial qualities of them. Soon, the small screen was flooded with the vulgarity and nudity of Game of Thrones and the nihilism and pessimism of House of Cards, but none of the insight or the stakes.
Whereas Sex and the City tethered its libertine laughs with the beating heart of strong female friendships, Lena Dunham’s Girls tried to lean so hard into the honest loneliness of constant meaningless sex that, in the process, she transformed her characters into caricatures whose increasingly self-destructive decisions made absolutely no sense. Fleabag, which followed the similar formula of a woman who constantly has sex, seems to lack the sort of enjoyment for it that made Samantha of Sex and the City such a hoot, became a similar favorite of pundits and the Emmys. Other repeat nominees over recent years for outstanding comedy include Master of None, in which Aziz Ansari plays a millennial every bit as aimless and whiny as Dunham’s protagonist, and Insecure, with Issa Rae playing the same shapeless archetype. Some shows, such as the repeat winner Veep and the always overlooked Curb Your Enthusiasm, stand out with uniquely brilliant writing and execution, but the trend seemed to favor comedy less intended to elicit laughs rather than self-congratulatory social commentary.
Ted Lasso, however, corrected the overcorrection. The premise and plot are simple, but all the tropes beloved by lazy sitcoms of the past are subverted. Rebecca, played by Hannah Waddingham, has an obvious foil in the much younger Keely Jones, played by Juno Temple. But instead of pitting Waddingham’s elder ice queen against the bubbly blonde publicist for AFC Richmond, the two women become actual friends, much more akin to Carrie Bradshaw and her crew than any other fake female friendships dominating the comedies in recent years. Despite Lasso’s indomitable exterior, both the acting and the writing continue to render him a character as three-dimensional as a Draper or a Soprano, albeit with less of a dramatic backstory. The show embraces loss and failure not with the zeal of nihilism, but with the measure of realism. Social commentary finds its place in the appropriate storylines, but it never tries to insert itself when unnecessary.
Hollywood turning over big-screen profit margins to China may have made its increasing domestic disconnect with audiences a permanent problem by design, and thanks to limitless platforms such as SoundCloud, the music industry can continue to reward shock effect over talent without crowding out performers favored by the public. But Ted Lasso proved that nice guys and nice comedies don’t have to be boring — and they might just save the Emmys from irrelevance.
