Better Off Ted, "Mess of a Salesman": Deal with it!

A quick review of tonight's "Better Off Ted" - at the moment, the last episode of this hysterical comedy currently scheduled to air - coming up just as soon as I say goodbye to common sense...

God, I'm going to miss this very weird, very funny show, and if "Mess of a Salesman" wasn't this season's strongest entry, it still offered us an appropriately silly note for the show to end on(*).

(*) For now, at least. Steve McPherson didn't sound like he wanted to try the show on Wednesdays, and based on the ratings neither "Ted" nor "Scrubs" deserve any additional chances - but whoever would have thought we'd get a second season based on how the first one did? I don't want to instill false hope - and anyone thinking of petitioning another network to pick it up shouldn't waste their time (again, the ratings were beyond awful) - but more surprising things have happened.

We got to see the recklessness of Lem (in leather pants!) and Phil breaking rules, buying corpses (with "new dead guy smell"), and subjecting a family of robots (albeit not the whole extended family) to a wind tunnel. We got Veronica and Linda playing an unconventional but effective few rounds of Good Cop/Bad Cop. We got Eddie McClintock (from "Warehouse 13") as Ted's brother, suggesting an alternate universe version of the show in which McClintock (more innately funny than Jay Harrington, but still workable as a straight man) had been cast as Ted. And we got another Veridian ad, even though this season has been unfortunately scarce with those.

In a fairer, more hopeful world, "Ted" might have had a better chance to succeed. (If nothing else, ABC could have plugged it in on Wednesdays for a week or two once "Hank" was mercifully killed.) But if I try to look at this situation like Linda and not Veronica, I see that we got 24 episodes (with two still to go) of hilarity, got reassurance that Portia de Rossi's work on "Arrested Development" wasn't a fluke, discovered that Andrea Anders could be funny when given better material than she received on either "Joey" or "The Class," got the wonderful comedy duo of Malcolm Barrett and Jonathan Slavin, and got time capsule episodes like "Racial Sensitivity" and "Beating a Dead Workforce."

And, again, as I linked to a couple of weeks ago (and which I remind you is very NSFW), we got this.

Sigh... what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "Lust in Translation": Ooooh, the Germans are mad at me!

Last night's "Better Off Ted" combined bagel-related tomfoolery with schnitzel-related foreplay with Phil's voice-related sexual awkwardness. In other words, it was very funny, as per usual.

What did you guys think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted: What's so f'ing funny?

With the way press tour is going (I'm going to spend half the day either interviewing HBO people or attending HBO sessions), I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to get to the second of Tuesday night's two "Better Off Ted"s, let alone to write about either one. And with the NBC Thursday comedies coming up tonight, I think I'm better off just giving up on finding the "Ted" time (I'll watch the second ep eventually) and letting you guys discuss them both.

Also, in case you haven't seen it, you must check out this collection of outtakes from the first episode, in which the actors are encouraged to use real, filthy, incredibly NSFW profanity.

Based on everything that's been said at press tour - Steve McPherson at ABC doesn't think it's compatible with the Wednesday comedies and therefore probably won't try it there, and Fox (the only other network with any reason to save it, since their studio owns it) isn't interested - "Ted" is sadly doomed. But at least we get to enjoy it while all the episodes are airing.

What did you guys think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "Beating a Dead Workforce" & "Change We Can't Believe In": Never gonna give you up

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" double feature coming up just as soon as I talk about drawer elves(*)...

(*) Good lord, were these episodes awash in "just as soon as" candidates. Eventually, I just had to stop jotting them down, and I let "fun Steven," "talk about drawer elves" and "know what a beard of fingers would feel like" battle it out to the death. The lesson: never bet against an elf - especially one in a drawer.

Much like "Scrubs," "Ted" finally regained its footing with its post-Rose Bowl episode, then followed that up with two more very strong ones last night.

Both episodes featured plenty of wordplay (again, see all the potential "as soon as" candidates, which also included "unsubscribe to whatever you're doing right now" and "demonstrate irony"), great physical comedy (Veronica sweeping the leg Cobra Kai-style, Lem and Phil trying to communicate without speech), examples of technology run amok (the noisy sleep machine, the terrifying PA system), random pop culture digressions (Veronica's Rick-rolled elevator music), corporate satire (the company turning the late Jenkins into a religious figure to keep the employees working so hard), and the usual disturbing bits of Veronica psychology (Ted: "The version of Linda you heard in your head was right!").

Plus, the second episode finally gave us another Veridian ad, which taught us, "Friendship. It's the same as stealing."

They finally got the show clicking again, and I'm gonna really enjoy the rest of this run while I can.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "The Great Repression": The extra 'S' is for extra harassment

I would complain that ABC dumped one of the funniest "Better Off Ted"s of the season - including a great spotlight for Andrea Anders as Linda turned into a sexual harassment vigilante, plus an amusingly inverted premise for Lem and Phil's robots vs. guys with mops subplot - on New Year's Day after the Rose Bowl, but the ratings have been so awful on Tuesdays that at this point I suppose I should just feel grateful they're going to show all the episodes of this season.

While I go to deflect your whiny bitching with my happiness shield, let me ask: what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "It's Nothing Business, It's Just Personal": Better dead than red

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" coming up just as soon as I help my daughter build a house of Legos...

That's more like it. The first few episodes of this season had funny bits here and there, but "It's Nothing Business" was the first one that reminded me of the stronger installments from last spring. It had physical comedy (Veronica sleeping sitting up, Ted's tiny office), a bit of farce (every one of Ted's attempts to interfere in Veronica's relationship with Mordor making things worse) and some sharper, more ridiculous corporate satire in the use of the red labcoat and everyone's reaction to it.

Don't forget that there's a new episode (and a new, JD-free "Scrubs") on Friday after the Rose Bowl, allegedly at 8:30 Eastern, but possibly airing later due to the unpredictability of live sporting events. I'm planning to pad my "Ted" recording by 90 minutes, which oughta do the trick of capturing both. And if not, there's always Hulu the next morning.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "Battle of the Bulbs": The nude Bhamba

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" just as soon as I take it back to the sarcasm store...

We're still not back to the level "Ted" was regularly hitting in season one, but "Battle of the Bulb" felt like a step in the right direction. There were a lot of very funny lines like Veronica's lightbulb joke, Rose's reaction to hearing Ted say "suck" ("So, 'suck' is okay to say now? Because I have some thoughts on the lunch you packed me.") and virtually every word out of Bhamba's mouth as he discussed sex with Lem's mom. (The return of Bhamba in general is always a welcome thing.) Khandi Alexander got to show off her comedy chops for the first time since "NewsRadio," Veronica trying to turn Linda into her sociopathic protege worked very well (and spared us from a third consecutive lame Ted/Linda storyline), and the popcorn popping in Lem's mouth was a wonderful sight gag.

Still, I hope we get another episode on the level of "Racial Sensitivity"(*) before the end comes - and make no mistake, it's coming. As I mentioned in the "Scrubs" review, ABC is going into Mid-Season Burn-Off Theatre mode with both comedies. They're going to air one "Scrubs" and two "Ted"s on New Year's Day after the Rose Bowl, and double-run both shows through January to get them off the air before "Lost" comes back. Considering how bad the ratings were last spring, and how surprised everyone was when ABC renewed the show, I suppose we should all look on this second season as an unexpected bonus (just like season two of "Dollhouse"). But like a lot of other TV critics, I'm wondering what, exactly, ABC would have to lose at this point by airing one of the remaining "Ted"s on Wednesday night. With "Hank" long dead, there's a hole there, and it's at least worth a shot. I recognize that the remaining Wednesday shows are all family comedies of various sorts, and their sensibilities are different than what "Ted" does, but funny is funny, and it seems worth a shot. This isn't a case of "Scrubs," a show that's been around forever, and where viewers have had a chance to decide if they care to watch it. This is a show that most people don't even know exists, and pairing it with some comedies on the rise instead of one living on borrowed time, even once, seems only fair, no?

(*) And thanks to all of you who either tweeted or e-mailed me links to the various stories about a racist Hewlett-Packard webcam. Always funny when life imitates art - especially art as good as "Racial Sensitivity."

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "The Lawyer, the Lemur and the Little Listener": I've never known you to pay money for any kind of capade

Again, I'm off this week, so most posts will be brief, particularly in the case of something like tonight's "Better Off Ted" where I reviewed it in a column last week. I thought this one was an improvement on the premiere, in that it gave us a Veridian ad and put more focus on Lem and Phil (the tail/antler conversation being a highlight), but this is two episodes in a row where the Ted plot felt like it just dragged on and on.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "Love Blurts": I'm Taye Diggs!(*)

I talked about my general disappointment with the "Better Off Ted" premiere (and next week's episode) in today's column, so go read that and then I'll have some brief, more spoiler-y thoughts coming up just as soon as I make sure it's the right man...

Look, so long as Lem, Phil and Veronica are around, "BoT" is never going to be not funny. But I felt let down by "Love Blurts" for these reasons:

1)No Veridian Dynamics commercial. There's one next week, but not till the very end.

2)Too much Ted as the center of his own storyline (as opposed to trying to fix the other characters' problems), and a storyline built around one of my least favorite sitcom devices: the lie that spirals out of control.

3)I didn't like that Veronica was bluffing with the records lady. Veronica should never, ever bluff, certainly not to someone that far below her own station.

4)While the idea that Taye Diggs' character likes to dress up in a "totally realistic bear costume" is very funny (it's the "totally realistic" part), they didn't know where to take the joke from there, I thought.

So while "Love Blurts" wasn't as useless as a stack of Mymans, it wasn't the triumph most of the episodes last spring were, either.

What did everybody else think?

(*) For those wondering about the subject line, it is a reference to one of the great press tour quotes of all time, which Rick Porter recapped here. Click here to read the full post

'Better Off Ted' season two review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review the first two episodes of "Better Off Ted" season two. As mentioned in Friday's "30 Rock" review, I didn't find these to be an incredibly strong start to the new season, but as with "30 Rock," the show sets itself a fairly high degree of difficulty.

Short, separate post will be up tonight after the first episode airs. Click here to read the full post

Good news about 'Chuck,' 'Scrubs' and 'Better Off Ted'

Courtesy of my friend Joe, two bits of very good news (one surprising, one not) about shows of interest here on the blog:

• NBC is going to order six extra episodes of "Chuck," on top of the 13 already ordered (thanks in part to the passion of all the Subway-eating fans).

• "Scrubs" will be back on Dec. 1 at 9 with back-to-back episodes, and "Better Off Ted" will follow at 9:30 on Dec. 8. (I talked about the revamped version of "Scrubs" with Bill Lawrence a couple of months ago.)

We knew that ABC was going to bring those two comedies back in that hour, in between seasons of "Dancing with the Stars," so it was just a question of specifics.

The "Chuck" news, on the other hand, is as unexpected as it is cool, and I'll have some more thoughts on that after the jump...

None of this is official as yet, but coupled with the news that NBC won't give "Trauma" a back-nine order, it sure sounds like the plan is to pair "Chuck" with "Heroes" again ("Chuck" at 8, "Heroes" at 9), and probably to bring "Chuck" back in January so a bunch of episodes can air before the Olympics, as opposed to keeping the show off the air until March. (The alternative, which Joe suggests, would be to stick with the March launch and then run the show into the summer, but that seems less likely, given the network business model.)

While the Monday at 8 pile-up is still not ideal for the show, at least "Big Bang Theory" (which has by far the biggest audience overlap of any show in that timeslot last year) has moved. And between the failure of "Trauma," the delays on "Parenthood" (which at least has Lauren Graham to replace Maura Tierney) and the network's decision not to air "Southland" at all, there are holes to fill, even with Leno taking up five hours a week. "Chuck" is a known quantity for NBC, albeit a relatively low-rated one, so it can help fill those holes. And getting it on the air in January, if that's the plan, seems a good compromise between March (Olympic promotion, but way too long off the air) and rushing it on the air to replace either "Trauma" or "Southland" with no promotion. Now they can plug it for a while, at least during football and the Thursday comedies.

My one question is how the writers are going to handle the shift from 13 to 19 episodes. "Chuck" writer Ali Adler tweeted yesterday that they had just finished filming episode 8, and writing tends to be several episodes ahead of production, so they're not far from the end. So Fedak, Schwartz and company have two options:

1)Do the first 13 as planned, then continue the story with six more episodes after that.

2)End the season as planned, only in the 19th episode, and try to wedge in a bunch of additional stories (some self-contained, some not) in episodes 13-18.

Each option has its potential downside. "Felicity" tried Option 1 when the WB unexpectedly ordered some extra episodes at the end of their final season, which led to a weird time-travel storyline. "The Sopranos" went with Option 2 when its final season was split into two parts, which led to Gay Vito's trip to New Hampshire.

But one of my concerns about the 13-episode order (after I got over the joy and relief that the show would come back at all) was that the tight schedule meant we wouldn't get a chance to have some self-contained episodes that had nothing to do with the main arc, like "Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer" or "Chuck vs. the Best Friend". The extension may give the writers an opportunity to do a few more of those, though the timing may be awkward if they all come in a clump right after, say, The Ring has kidnapped Ellie and burned down the Buy More.

But it's six more hours of "Chuck" than I thought we'd be getting this year, on top of the 13 hours of "Chuck" I wasn't so sure we'd be getting, so I ain't complaining. Click here to read the full post

I've got Lefevre, and the only prescription is... more 'Better Off Ted'

My very last interview of press tour came late at ABC's party, when Fienberg and I ran into "Better Off Ted" creator Victor Fresco. At that point, I was a little too delirious from sleep deprivation to be conversant on my own, but with Dan there, we muddled through. I had hoped to write it up myself before ABC airs the final two "Ted"s of the season tonight at 9 & 9:30, but my "Mad Men" season three review got bumped up a day (note the new blog logo), and that's consuming most of my time. Fortunately, Dan already has his own account of the interview up at HitFix, so go over there to read Fresco's take on the summer run, inconsistent scheduling, the strengths of his cast, and the appearance of Rachelle Lefevre (famous to the world from "Twilight," but known to Fresco from "Life on a Stick") in the second of tonight's two episodes.

One thing Dan didn't include in his story: when I asked Fresco why all the Veridian Dynamics commercials weren't easily available online, and particularly why they weren't all up on the official Veridian website, he seemed surprised, and said he was going to look into that today. Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "Bioshuffle": Close quarters

In this summer dead zone, it's nice to have original "Better Off Ted" episodes around, albeit sporadically (next week is a rerun of the one where Phil and Lem accidentally drug Linda). Last night's episode was a good showcase for the whole cast, plus it brought in Joy Osmanski from "The Loop" as Lem's statistically average love interest, plus it had funny jokes like Phil's abbreviation for "acid interface." Good times.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, "You Are the Boss of Me": Complete fit-shaced

I shared my delight about the return of "Better Off Ted" in Monday's column. What did you all think? Click here to read the full post

'Better Off Ted' returns - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I talk about how happy (and yet slightly puzzled) I am about tomorrow's return of "Better Off Ted" with original episodes. Click here to read the full post

Better Off Ted, 'Get Happy': Cat people vs. spacemen

Tuesday is, at the moment, one of my bigger scheduling traffic jam days, which means it's going to take me a while to work through it all. Still haven't watched "Fringe," or "Cupid," and while I just finished the "Better Off Ted" finale, I don't really have time to write about it. Fortunately, Fienberg did, so go read him and then share your thoughts on the finale wherever. Click here to read the full post

'Better Off Ted' is getting better all the time

I've been meaning for the past several weeks to write more about "Better Off Ted," since I've seen all of the episodes and have been enjoying them, but it keeps winding up at the bottom of the to-do list, and then suddenly, it feels like it's too late to weigh in on episodes like the racial sensitivity one depicted above.

Fortunately, Isaac Spaceman at Throwing Things has penned an ode to how good the show has gotten, which gives me the chance to link to him, say the obligatory AOL-ish "Me, too!" (though I wouldn't go so far as to call it the Best Show On Television the last few weeks) and hope that I can be back on track for the next episode. Ratings haven't been great, so I wouldn't get too attached, but this is one you're gonna want to enjoy while you can. (And if you haven't seen it and don't mind dealing with the 18,000 menu screens you have to go through on ABC.com to watch it, it's worth catching up on.) Click here to read the full post

'Better Off Ted' review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review ABC's "Better Off Ted," a comedy that bears more than a passing resemblance to creator Victor Fresco's short-lived "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" -- which, if you watched "Andy Richter" (finally coming out on DVD next week), you'll know is a good thing.

Given how swamped I am this week, I won't have time for a separate episode post, so feel free to comment on it here after it airs. Click here to read the full post