Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
To paraphrase folksy wisdom expert and Ted Lasso forbearer Forrest Gump, “Mama always said, ‘TV shows are like a dead dog, you’ve got to exhume them to make another season.'” Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham took that old chestnut to heart at the premiere of her latest film, Smurfs, comparing her returning sports dramedy to “the most beautiful, beloved dog that was buried, and now we’ve exhumed it.” Don’t worry, as far as digging up a rotting canine corpse goes, she assures fans, “I’m here for it.”
An exhumation would be necessary because most believed Ted Lasso dead and buried after the third season, including star Jason Sudeikis. In March 2023, Sudeikis said season three was “the end of this story that we wanted to tell.” And, though the season three finale, entitled “So Long, Farewell,” concluded on Lasso’s climactic wedding and a dream sequence featuring the supporting characters riding off into the sunset, Apple TV+ convinced Sudeikis and co-creator Bill Lawrence to dig up their beloved pup, stick electrodes in its lifeless skull, and reanimate the show under the assumption that it will look, act, and sound like it did when it was running across Nelson Road Stadium full of life. A Frankenweenie for A.F.C. Richmond? We’re here for it.
Fresh off playing one of several generals receiving exposition dumps from Ethan Hunt and voicing Jezebeth in the new Smurfs, Waddingham is ready to eat some of Ted’s freshly baked biscuits again. “I was hankering and hankering and hankering and hankering to see where Rebecca had gone, where she was going to,” Waddingham told Variety. “She’s my girl. She’s in my bloodstream, so I’m thrilled that it’s been exhumed.” Alas, Apple has not announced a return date for the reanimated corpse of Ted Lasso, but when they do, we hope they’ll do something about the smell.
