Should we cheer the return of Ted Lasso? 

Lovers of Jason Sudeikis, British soccer — that’ll be “football” to you — and undemanding, if surprisingly curse-laden, comedy-dramas, rejoice. The third season of Sudeikis’s hit comedy Ted Lasso ended last year, with what seemed to be a fairly definitive conclusion to the show. The eponymous Ted returned home after seeing his beloved AFC Richmond come second in the league, the club’s dastardly former owner Rupert (Anthony Head, the show’s MVP in my opinion) was defeated and comic sidekick-turned-villain Nate “the Great” was redeemed and welcomed back into the fold. There were, admittedly, a few curveballs and loose ends chucked in there, but it was hard to see where a fourth season could go.  

It now looks as if we will find out. After a great deal of rumor, Deadline has now suggested that a new season is on the verge of being greenlit, and that its British stars Hannah Waddingham, as club owner Rebecca, Brett Goldstein, as snarling (but secretly vulnerable) player Roy Kent and Jeremy Swift, as the club’s bumbling director of operations Leslie, have all been contracted to a further series — and that Sudeikis, who is presently only on board as an executive producer, is expected to return, too, along with most of the supporting cast, bar breakout actor Phil Dunster as the narcissistic and preening Jamie Tartt, who is busy with other commitments.  

The reappearance of Ted Lasso on our screens will be greeted with great enthusiasm by its many fans. Apple TV+ has not found another comedy-drama that has had such universal appeal — over a year after its third series ended, it is still to be found in its “most watched” section — and they will no doubt be keen to reacquaint subscribers to the service with the adventures of the characters. Sudeikis, always an amicable and hugely likable presence on-screen, was noticeably coy when asked about whether the show would return for a fourth season in previous interviews, suggesting that the end of the third series concluded “the story we want to tell,” but said, “I think that we’ve set the table for all sorts of folks to get to watch the further telling of these stories… the fact that people want more, even if it’s a different avenue, is lovely.” 

This therefore implies that the show could come back with its central characters but with a different focus; many have suggested that Juno Temple’s fan favorite character Keeley Jones, Roy’s girlfriend-turned-businesswoman, should now become the focus of the show — and given Temple’s impressive comic chops, this would be an appealing idea. As someone who enjoyed the very strange, very unusual second season episode, “Beard After Hours,” which followed the nocturnal progress of Brendan Hunt’s taciturn Coach Beard through a series of exploits that owed more than a small debt to — of all things — James Joyce’s Ulysses and Scorsese’s After Hours, I would love to see a fourth series explore a more experimental and daring direction, but I fear that this is unlikely to be sustained over an entire season. Still, please bring back James Lance’s louche, amused and amusing journalist-turned-club biographer Trent Crimm, who, in a splendidly meta moment, popped up in character when Sudeikis and the rest of the cast appeared at the White House last year to discuss issues of mental health. 

Does Ted Lasso need to come back? On balance, probably not. But Apple needs a guaranteed hit, audiences need a laugh and the show’s amicable cast may not need the work, but they’ll certainly be glad of the no doubt substantial paychecks being waved at them. So it is with quiet anticipation that I await the next installment of the series sometime next year. Just don’t let us down, Jason — or, I should say, Ted.