Believe.
After a three-year hiatus, Apple TV’s Emmy-winning hit “Ted Lasso” is back with a fourth season that resets the show with a jolt of much-needed energy.
Season 4 stumbles out of the gate with a tepid season premiere. When it finds its footing, it’s the best “Ted Lasso” has been since Season 1.
Premiering Aug. 5, Season 4 sees folksy former college football coach Ted Lasso (series creator/star Jason Sudeikis) — who spent previous seasons as an unlikely Premier League soccer club manager in the UK — back in Kansas. His soccer days are behind him.
The comedy initially aired for three seasons from 2020 to 2023. In the world of the show, a few years have passed since the events of Season 3.
Ted is working a mundane job and raising his son, Henry (played by Gus Turner from Seasons 1 to 3, now recast as Grant Feely).
When his old friends and colleagues, including Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) and Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), visit, they convince Ted to return to his old stomping grounds across the pond — this time, to coach their budding women’s soccer team.
Unwisely, the season premiere takes nearly an hour to set that up, even though we all know that Ted coaching a women’s team is the premise of Season 4.
It’s in the trailers! So, that’s a needlessly laborious note to start on.
But, after that misfire, Season 4 has a similar format to Season 1, as Ted tries to assemble and motivate a team of underdogs and figure out how to make their clashing personalities work — and everyone has their own drama.
Former player Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) returns as the men’s coach who is conveniently sharing the facility. This allows him to constantly pop up, like a foul-mouthed version of a sitcom neighbor. He continues to have a “will they or won’t they” dynamic with his ex-girlfriend, Keeley.
Season 4 is different enough that it doesn’t feel like the show is repeating itself (give or take some plot threads, such as Roy and Keeley circling each other). There’s a new team, with new characters and unique issues.
It’s also familiar enough that for audiences who found the show cozy when it came out during the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ll find the new episodes to be a return to form.
It seems like a course-correction from how it veered off the rails in Seasons 2 and 3, which got bogged down with plots that didn’t work, including Nate’s (Nick Mohammed) heel turn. He’s mercifully absent.
The show seemingly ended in 2023, until Season 4 was announced in March 2025.
The first three seasons were a culture-clash story, following goofy Ted in England, coaching an underdog men’s team, which included Roy and Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster, who has been cageyabout if he’s returning).
After premiering in 2020, “Ted Lasso” quickly became a phenomenon. To date, it has 61 Emmy nominations and 13 wins. The comedy put Apple TV on the map for its later shows, including “The Studio” and “Widow’s Bay,” to also dominate awards season.
The show was a star-maker for Goldstein, Waddingham and Temple. Fittingly, they all get a lot of focus in Season 4.
The new season mixes them with new characters, including the hard-nosed women’s coach, Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds), and working-mom player Lizzie (Faye Marsay).
The new players’ personalities are introduced slowly. Returning characters dominate the plot.
Does all of the “Ted Lasso, but this time, with women” stuff work? No.
In some places, it’s woven in well, such as in Rebecca’s efforts to lean into “girl boss” feminism. It’s deliberately and amusingly awkward, which suits her character. In other sequences, such as the first episode’s attempt to compare women’s sports to baseball’s historic Negro Leagues, it lands with a thud.
The cringeworthy moments are minimal, though.
The episodes clip along at a steady pace, and the humor mingles well with more serious points about women’s sports being underfunded and undervalued.
Season 4 is “Ted Lasso” at its best, offering team-building, sincerity, an emphasis on everyone trying their best, all undercut with enough dry British humor to keep the whole thing from feeling too cloyingly sweet.
For those who liked Season 1 and found your attention stray, as Seasons 2 and 3 had diminishing returns, it’s worth giving it another shot.
“Ted Lasso” Season 4 premieres Aug. 5 on Apple TV.
The post ‘Ted Lasso’ scores with hotly anticipated Season 4: review appeared first on New York Post.
