Better Off Ted – ABC – 9:00/8:00pm Tuesday – USA
The hardest show to talk about is always the ‘middle of the road’ show. The type of show that makes its allegiance to neither the ‘good’ group, nor to the ‘bad’ group – it just sits there in the middle. Better Off Ted is in that middle.
Ted is the story of a guy named Ted who works at a big evil corporation that makes lots of things. That’s really the plot there in a nutshell. Portia De Rosi plays his boss, a black guy and a weedy guy play scientists, and a blonde quirky girl plays a blonde quirky girl. Ted’s played by a guy who according to imdb was in Private Practice for a bit, and Desperate Housewives for a little bit, or as I like to call him “Guy With The Don Draper Voice.”
Better Off Ted sits in that television purgatory where you can’t quite figure out if you like the show or not. It’s a realm of the television world reserved primarily for sitcoms. Usually of the Corner Gas or Andy Richter Controls The Universe variety (speaking of which, turns out: Andy Richter; from the people who brought you Better Off Ted…) – they’re likeable, watchable and on some occasions even funny but you keep coming back to it because the cast are so … ‘nice’ isn’t the right word and ‘charming’ doesn’t quite pin point it so maybe – nicing.
Actually one of the common threads on these ‘nice enough’ kinds of sitcoms is Maz Jobrani – an Iranian actor who also appeared in another pair of Purgatory Comedies – Knights Of Prosperity and Life On A Stick.
Purgatory Comedies keep you around because you kind of just like to hang – “you seem like nice people, what are we all doing this time next week?” Unfortunately they also leave you with not much to say.
I will say this though: Ted has a daughter, and she was actually funny. Go figure a child actor that wasn’t repulsive. Speaking of not repulsive – Portia De Rosi was really funny as well. Which isn’t shocking if you loved her in Arrested Development but is shocking if you’re like me and thought she was the worst part of Arrested Development. But she’s great here.
While the wackiness is a little forced, okay it’s A LOT forced – ‘deadly pumpkins’, ‘girl who collects milk creamers’, ‘guy cryogenically frozen who now screams a lot’ – but it’s not grating. I see Better Off Ted getting better, and from what I hear on the big wide world of the web that may just be the case.
I’m sticking with Ted just because I can feel it going places, in the meantime though I can only rate it ‘average’ just because there’s nothing to hate – and not being hated never qualified anybody for ‘good’ status before.
Good, Alright, Bad or Ugly?
Alright
