For those of you that saw the title and assumed this post had anything whatsoever to do with zombies or
Shaun of the Dead or anything else like that I apologize. There will be no zombies here, and not just because I find myself rather impervious to the zombies and vampires fad that is so omnipresent these days. But, to those same people who might have thought this was about zombies I have a question: Did you watch
Better Off Ted during its run on ABC? No? Shame on you and, in fact, you can consider that earlier apology rescinded, because you failed to embrace (or, likely, even be aware of) one of the great sitcoms of the decade.
Now, those may sound like big words, and, well, they are. But
Better Off Ted deserves such hyperbole. The show centered around the titular Ted (Jay Harrington), a Research and Development whiz at a large international corporation called Veridian Dynamics. Ted's work life, and thus the show's narrative, revolved around his interactions with four uniquely crazy co-workers. His boss, Veronica (Portia DeRossi), a woman so deeply committed to her work that her personality is as sociopathic as the company she works for, Ted's sometimes crush, Linda (Andrea Anders), a product tester so beaten down by corporate life that she takes to ventures like stealing coffee creamer to assert her individuality, & Phil and Lem, a pair of R&D scientists utterly devoid of self-confidence. The series flung these characters into contact with a variety of loopy situations (naturally incandescent squirrels anyone?) and even more zany characters (my particular favorite being Dr. Bamba, a scientist with the personality of a Bond villain), but what really set the show apart was its peerless writing. Marked by the same mix of verbal play and social satire that made Arrested Development so successful,
Better Off Ted's episodes were master classes in humor, with killer jokes and side-splitting exchanges that were as hilarious as they were plentiful.
Aired at odd times for two brief seasons on ABC,
Better Off Ted was never given much of a chance by the network, which thought so little of its commercial prospects that the second season was burned off two episodes at a time last winter. What's worse, ABC pulled
Better Off Ted from the air with two episodes to go before the second season ended. It had planned to burn these off in June, but the NBA Finals went to seven games (Damn you, Kobe Bryant!), bumping the lost episodes off the docket and apparently ending any hopes that they might see the air.
Surprisingly, there is something of a happy ending here for myself and other Ted cultists. The recently released DVDs of
Better Off Ted's second season contain those lost episodes, and so, through the magic of Netflix Instant Watch, I am here to review them for you.
The first episode, "Swag the Dog," finds Ted placed in charge of another of Veridian’s plots to increase their workers’ productivity while the board of directors are in town. This time Ted is tasked with running a giveaway of company swag, useless knick-knacks like sweatshirts, water bottle holders, and the like. The employees get tickets for doing a good job, which leads to accusations of favoritism, and sexual liaisons, when Ted gives Linda more tickets than the others (and affectionately strokes her hair). Of course, Ted freaks out at the accusations, insulting Linda in the process and countering the rumors by stroking the hair of everyone he encounters in the hallway.
Phil and Lem seize upon the swag as a way to increase the amount of respect they receive in the office. They scheme to print counterfeit tickets so that they can buy matching Veridian Dynamics belt buckles. Phil and Lem being Phil and Lem their scheme soon explodes in a bonanza of fake tickets and faker hillbilly teeth. A situation like this would normally be cleaned up by Veronica, but she spends much of the episode wandering through the bowels of the Veridian building babysitting a former CEO out to find some long-lost documents that could shame the company.
There are some eminently quotable lines in “Swag the Dog,” and the payoff for some of the scenarios is priceless (namely Phil and Lem strutting down the hallway with large “VD” belt buckles, but the whole thing doesn’t hang together quite as well as most Ted episodes. The main plotline with the swag is only a slight variation on other plotlines the series has tackled before, and the Veronica storyline never really goes anywhere, though it does feature a pretty funny fight between and old man and a very skinny woman. The episode’s redemption comes at the end of the Ted/Linda plotline, which finally lets the characters play out all the simmering attraction and sexual tension they’ve built up and pushed down inside since the pilot. For someone who has seen every episode multiple times, it was a nice moment.
Our other zombie episode, “It’s My Party and I’ll Lie If I Want To” pares down the number of plotlines, essentially giving us dueling A stories. They are tied together by one of the show’s best gags, a machine that can detect lies based on the stress that telling a lie puts into the speaker’s voice. The buzz it emits when a lie is told leads to several scenes of wonderful farce, highlighted by Phil screaming after admitting that he is crippled by fear every moment of every day (Buzz, damn you!) and Veronica’s wonderful lies that are an “alarming mixture of sex and death” that the machine cannot pick up on.
In the first plotline Veronica gets annoyed by Ted’s recent bonding with smarmy executive Chet because their daughters have become friends in Veridian’s daycare center.
The Crisps go on a putt-putt date with Chet and his daughter Olivia, which results in Ted getting invited to join a prestigious new project, but also leads Rose to discover that she dislikes being made to lose at put-putt so her dad’s career can advance. Hearing these developments Veronica starts trying to muscle her way into the “Kid Mafia” by bringing her niece to the company’s daycare as a means of ingratiation.
The second plot tracks Phil and Lem’s attempts to become better friends with Linda after overhearing her place a stressed phone call. They invite her to join their Saturday night ritual of “Nachos and Bowling,” where they get trashed if their bowling score is higher than the percent of actual cheese in the nacho dip. Linda demurs, claiming heavy work responsibilities, but the lie detector’s buzzing reveals some hidden duplicity. The less-than dynamic duo overhear another of Linda’s phone conversations, listening in on what certainly sounds like a party invitation (“Oh yeah, everything, beer, hard liquor, everything, even strippers!”
Two separate parties help tie up the episode (and, sadly, the series). At Olivia’s birthday party Ted shows up sans Rose, who refuses to attend, and Veronica shows up with her neighbor’s daughter because her niece has not been allowed to attend (“My sister…thought I had developed a genuine interest in the child. What really hurts in all this is how little my sister knows me.”) Eventually Olivia gets wise to Rose’s absence, proffering the advice that she’s probably been murdered. This leads to a Chuck-E-Cheese-wide meltdown, which exposes both Ted and Veronica’s ruse. Across town Phil and Lem show up hammered to crash what they think is Linda’s party, only to discover that it’s an intervention for Linda’a alcoholic brother. Despite some initial incredulousness (“Oh, come on, peanuts, people crying, a priest…that’s a party!”) they quickly realize their crushing mistake and flee the scene, leaving the booze they brought with Linda’s flabbergasted brother.
The two plots reunite in a meeting room where the lie detector clears the air, buzzing when Linda feigns continued anger at Phil and Lem and not buzzing when Linda says she wants Ted to succeed but doesn’t want to be left behind by him. It’s a scene that seems purely
BoT, peppered with humor (Phil and Lem’s “awwwwwwwwwwww” when they realize Linda still likes them) and using that humor to set up a nice bit of resolution for Ted and Veronica.
In all honesty, the “Kid Mafia” plotline didn’t do much for me. Chet is a wonderful throwaway character, showing up to insert some hilarious smarm once or twice an episode, but centering a whole story around him felt a bit labored. Even in the absurdist world of Better Off Ted he seemed somehow too much. That being said, even if I wouldn’t call “It’s My Party and I’ll Lie If I Want To” one of Better of Ted’s better episodes , it’s a nice send-off for the series. It seems like the team behind Ted knew they weren’t long for this broadcast world, so they included some nice touches like Ted and Veronica’s non-confession confessions of solidarity and the three-way dance party in the lab that ends the episode and, thus, the series. If I were to try and sell someone on Better Off Ted I would not choose either of these episodes (Racial Sensitivity and Lust in Translation are my favorites), it’s still wonderful to see them eight months after the last new episodes were aired. I just wish I had more episodes to look forward to.
Episode grades: B/B+
Bits and Pieces (funny quotes or stuff worth commenting on that wasn’t in the reviews):
- Extra oxygen to boost worker productivity is a sublimely wonderful gag.
- “Drinking keeps me warm and approachable.”
- “Apparently I’m the hot cup of sex you dip your strange and circular stuff into.”
- “I see where this is going, Ted, and I’m not giving you a firm no.”
- “I didn’t call you hideous. I called you repulsive”
- “The jewelry, clothes, cattle. Cattle? Yes, cattle!”
- “ ‘Thanks, Linda. You really are a girl.’ ‘Yes, I am, and it’s not just the genitals, it’s a whole lifestyle.’ ”
- “I wish there was a third gender, something with boobs that was incapable of judging.”
- Take it off, Father Sexy!”
- No trademark Veridian commercial in “Swag the Dog,” which is too bad, those were often one of the show’s funniest segments
- If you haven’t seen Better Off Ted the whole series (all of 26 episodes) is available with Netflix on Demand, so you can jump onto your computer/Xbox/whatever and watch the whole series. Do it. Right now. Seriously, don’t even think about it.