Blu-ray Review: TED LASSO: THE RICHMOND WAY (The Complete Series)

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Aug 11 Posted by Kyle Nolan in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

Disclaimer: “Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray^TM I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”

All 34 episodes of the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso make their way onto physical media thanks to Warner Bros. Discover Home Entertainment.

Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham, Game of Thrones, The Fall Guy) has just gone through a bitter divorce with her cheating husband Rupert (Anthony Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and ended up as owner of British football club AFC Richmond in the settlement. She wants to get back at her ex-husband by burning his beloved football club to the ground, and to do so, she’s hired an American as the club’s new manager. Theodore “Ted” Lasso (Jason Sudeikis, SNL) is an American college football coach from Wichita, Kansas, who has never stepped foot in England, and doesn’t know anything about soccer. But he has endless supply of compassion, optimism, and folksy colloquialisms that tend to win people over. He’s joined on this journey across the pond by longtime friend Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt). They are unaware that Rebecca hired them to try to sabotage the team, and take on this task of coaching the football club with genuine sincerity. It’s going to take a lot to convince the players and press, such as skeptical reporter Trent Crimm (James Lance, Teachers, The Book Group) that Ted is the right man for the job. However, as hard as they might try to deny it, everyone eventually falls victim to Ted’s folksy charm.

Some of the other regular and recurring characters include Rebecca’s reluctant partner in crime/Director of Football Operations, Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), and model Keeley Jones (Juno Temple, Fargo), who starts off as the girlfriend of one of the players, but soon becomes the club’s manager of marketing and public relations. The team includes nervous kit man-turned assistant coach Nathan “Nate” Shelley (Nick Mohammed, Intelligence, Renegade Nell); and players Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), the foul-mouthed team captain who’s nearing the end of his football career; Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), the team’s young, egotistical top-scorer; Samuel “Sam” Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh), a young right back defender out of the Nigerian league; Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández), a young Mexican forward who joins the team after recovering from an injury; vice-captain/center-back Isaac McAdoo (Kola Bokinni); and Welsh left winger Colin Hughes (Billy Harris).

The series comes from executive producer Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town, Spin City, Shrinking) and finds this wonderful blend of humor and heart. One can’t help but fall in love with Ted’s folksy charm and always upbeat attitude. Star Jason Sudeikis really embodies and shines in this role. While Ted appears to be this always-optimistic and happy character, we learn early on that he’s having some issues in his marriage, and that his wife and son have chosen to remain in America as he takes on this new job. And while he deals with this in private, he still maintains his positive attitude for the team.

Sudeikis is surrounded by an amazing and hilarious ensemble, each of whom has too many standout moments to list here. Brett Goldstein’s always-angry and cursing Roy Kent constantly steals the scene, Juno Temple’s Keeley is so charming, it’s fun to see Hannah Waddingham’s Rebecca’s initial plotting against Ted turn into a genuine friendship, Brendan Hunt’s Coach Beard just gets weirder and weirder as the show goes along, and Nick Mohammed’s and Jeremy Swift’s constantly-nervous characters always bring the humor. Despite being a primarily half-hour comedy (episodes start to grow a lot longer in the final season), the story is heavily serialized. Over the course of the three seasons, each of these characters is given interesting storylines and a chance to grow or redeem themselves. One of the biggest of these shifts comes for the Nate character in the show’s final season.

The serialized nature of the series makes for a great binge as the events of one episode lead directly into the next. However, there are also some more unique somewhat-standalone episodes in season 2, such as a wonderful Christmas episode, “Carol of the Bells”, that could serve as its own Christmas special, and a very odd Coach Beard-centric episode, “Beard After Hours”. While the show ultimately does come to a satisfying series conclusion, the final season struggles a bit at the beginning. The third season also has some episodes that extend closer to or over an hour, which sometimes feel a bit too long after you’re used to runtimes that are half that.

While the only way to stream Ted Lasso digitally is still via Apple TV+, you can now own the entire series on physical media via Blu-ray or DVD, thanks to Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. We received the Blu-ray for review, and were quite pleased with the presentation. The picture quality looks excellent, with a crisp, clean picture and solid level of detail throughout. The audio track also provides clear dialogue and a somewhat immersive experience, especially during the game sequences.

The three seasons are split across 7 discs, with 2 each for the first 2 seasons, and 3 for the final season (due to the longer episode lengths). These are placed in trays in a thick HD keepcase, which is covered with a carboard slipcover. For a limited time, plastic-wrapped to the front of the case is a folded two-sided 18″x12″ poster with Believe on one side and a picture of the characters on the other. Unfortunately, the set does not include any bonus material, including the show’s 4-minute claymation special from 2021, “Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas Mustache”.

What’s Included:

Episodes:

All 3 seasons/34 episodes of the series of the series on 7 discs.
- Season 1 (2020), 10 episodes (5:13:12)
  Disc 1 (2:35:31): “Pilot”, “Biscuits”, “Trent Crimm: The Independent”, “For the Children”, “Tan Lines”
  Disc 2 (2:37:41): “Two Aces”, “Make Rebecca Great Again”, “The Diamond Dogs”, “All Apologies”, “The Hope That Kills You”
- Season 2 (2021), 12 episodes (7:52:34)
  Disc 1 (4:05:28): “Goodbye Earl”, “Lavender”, “Do the Right-est Thing”, “Carol of the Bells”, “Rainbow”, “The Signal”, “Headspace”
  Disc 2 (3:47:06): “Man City”, “Beard After Hours”, “No Weddings and a Funeral”, “Midnight Train to Royston”, “Inverting the Pyramid of Success”
- Season 3 (2023), 12 episodes (11:34:55)
  Disc 1 (3:57:35): “Smells Like Mean Spirit”, “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”, “4-5-1”, “Big Week”, “Signs”
  Disc 2 (3:39:56): “Sunflowers”, “The Strings That Bind Us”, “We’ll Never Have Paris”, “La Locker Room Aux Folles”
  Disc 3 (3:28:42): “International Break”, “Mom City”, “So Long, Farewell”
1080p / Widescreen 2.00:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas Mustache

Final Thoughts:

My Rating

Episodes:

Video:

Audio:

Extras:

Highly Recommended

Ted Lasso is such a delightful and upbeat series that does an excellent job of making the audience laugh while also taking its characters on a heartfelt journey. It features an amazing and hilarious ensemble cast, led by Jason Sudeikis as the ever charming and folksy lead. Warner Bros.’s Blu-ray looks and sounds great, but unfortunately doesn’t include any bonus material. That said, it is wonderful to see this series available to own, and not just locked behind a streaming service paywall. The release comes highly recommended for any fans of the series, or anyone looking for a fun series that mixes humor and heart and comes to a solid conclusion.

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