TV Review: Ted Lasso Season 3 (2023)

Ted Lasso Season 3 (2023) created by Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly, and Bill Lawrence

See my review of season one here and season two here!

AFC Richmond is in a struggle to stay in the Premier League. To bolster the team (and to stick it to rival West Ham, where assistant coach Nate (Nick Mohammed) has gone to work for Richmond owner Rebecca's (Hannah Waddingham) ex, Rupert (Anthony Head)), they hire Italian superstar Zava (Maximillian Osinski). Zava is a prima donna and a mystic, providing a strange vibe for the team that mostly adores him (except for Jaime Tartt (Phil Dunster)). Former journalistic nemesis Trent (James Lance) has retired from his newspaper and wants to write a book about AFC Richmond, so he joins in the backroom situations. The way forward is quite precarious both on and off the football pitch for everyone involved.

A problem I have noticed with a lot of television series is the eventual lapse into soap-operatics. Once the initial brilliant idea is played out, the writers resort to romantic entanglements for the characters to provide the drama or the comedy. That happens in this season. The team's challenges shifts away from interesting interpersonal challenges to predictable and unpredictable dating and hook-ups. The show still has its core drama, Lasso's (Jason Sudeikis) strained relationship with home, and lots of funny moments, but it is a lot less satisfying than the previous two seasons. The episodes, especially toward the end, feel padded out but the finale is a satisfying finish for the story. I still laughed a lot, just not as much as previous seasons.

Mildly recommended.