Tag Archives: Better Off Ted

While not the last episode produced of Better Off Ted, “Mess of a Salesman” is the last episode currently scheduled and ABC doesn’t seem to have any plans to burn off the final two anywhere. And, as Mike’s helpful Bubble Watch makes clear, the odds of a third season are pretty low. So, this could well be the last episode to grace the airwaves and, even if it didn’t go out on the high note I would have like, it was still an amiably absurd half hour.

The high point, as always, was Phil and Lem, whose antics were pretty amusing. Despite being ordered by Ted not to buy expensive lab equipment that they don’t need, they end up being won over by Ted’s salesman brother, who convinces them to ignore the rules, first by leaving work in the middle of the day (like Somali pirates) to go drinking and enjoy cheese cubes at the Admiral’s Lounge. Eventually, they got their new catchphrase, but I don’t feel like typing it here. Deal with it!

Their new blaze attitude towards authority was pretty hilarious, as they ordered a cadaver (and later named it, in direct violation of Ted’s order not to), a wind tunnel, and a family of robots (although not the whole family, which comes with grandparents who are still sitting back in the factory, brokenhearted). They also, amusingly, continued to yell “Deal with it!” while Lem bought leather pants and Phil “squeezed 10 pieces of cheese into a ball and ate it like an apple. I probably shouldn’t have done that. But I’m dealing with it.”

But why was Ted’s brother hanging around anyway? Well, it turned out he had been fired and was in town looking for a job, so Ted set him up as a salesman at a company that sells Veridian lab equipment…after Ted agreed to buy an unnecessary number of beakers (and he spends part of the episode looking for uses for them, such as coffee cups, which pays off splendidly when Veronica leaves the room during her “bad cop” act to go get “200 milliliters of coffee”). But the relationship between Ted and his brother felt frustratingly generic -  we’ve seen all the brotherly wrestling and mess-cleaning thousands of times before – which was very disappointing from a show that’s normally as quirky and offbeat as Ted.

The B-plot was also a little unsatisfying. It concerned Veronica winning an award, as she reminded everyone dozens of times. Part of the award is that she has to raise money for a charity, a job that she pawns off onto Linda until she finds out the charity provides young girls with a female mentor to help them navigate the corporate workplace. The two form a good cop/bad cop routine that raises a lot of money, but then they find out that only 5% actually goes to the charity while the other 95% of the money goes to telling the world about said charity. Linda headbutts the obnoxious head of the Veridian Foundation and then the two of them go rouge and donate all the money directly to the charity. This turns out to be illegal, but Ted’s brother, Lem, and Phil solve two problems at once by planting the cadaver in the guy’s car and blackmailing him into leaving Linda and Veronica alone.

On the whole, I thought this week was light on laughs and substance. None of the plots felt too satisfying, and none of the jokes really landed. Its kind of a shame, if this is the broadcast finale, to have to go out on a substandard note. That being said, there were still some good moments, especially when it came to the family of robots and Phil and Lem’s insistence that we “deal with it.” In the end, I can’t think of a better thesis statement for this show than Veronica’s line, “Now saddle up, Linda, and say good bye to common sense.” Its just that this episode had a little too much common sense for my taste.

Jonah’s Score: 59

Tangled Up in Wires Grade: C+

P.S. Though this could be the end of our Better Off Ted coverage, I’m not as broken up over it as I would be, since I’m going to be recapping the show replacing it, and I’m just a little excited to see what it has in store for us.

Before we get into the review proper, I just want to double check with you guys about something. There was only one episode right? I only saw one and I haven’t been able to find any evidence of a second Better Off Ted so I’m assuming that there was only the one, but someone let me know if I’m mistaken. Its just that, since there’s only one Tuesday left until Lost comes back, I’m not sure how ABC is going to burn off all the Ted‘s (maybe they’re gonna save a couple to entice people to buy the DVDs?).

No matter how the episodes get out, I hereby promise you that I’ll recap them all (even if we have to wait for the DVD release), because between the last few episodes and this one, Ted has rediscovered its stride and it sure has been fun to watch. This week was the best of the year; featuring tight construction, an endless number of quotable lines, and a rapidfire pace that could rival 30 Rock in its prime.

“Lust in Translation” concerns the arrival of some representatives from a German company who are interested in teaming up with Veridian. Its a huge deal so Veronica and Ted want to show off Veridian’s brand new multi-language translator, a box that will translate what the speaker is saying into any language, and also limit the number of inappropriate things they say to the Germans (Veronica has a tougher time with this. Her practice pitch: “We believe the multi-language translator will create a furor in Germany. A furor that will sweep across Europe crushing…no”). Ted hits it off with Greta, the hot German boss, but her limited English and his limited German are a barrier (when they meet, she tells him “you and I do it, I hope…the coming together). The Germans have to stick around for a few days when it turns out that the translator, hilariously, says things in a deep, angry, robotic voice that makes even benign greetings like “Hello, I am your friend! Do not be afraid!” terrifying (Ted thought they were working on it, to which Lem replies “We were…and we made it more awesome!).

Ted ends up sleeping with Greta, despite Veronica’s cautioning that sex screws everything up (“Why do you think The Three Stooges went through so many Curlys?”), and things start off great (like the collapsing of the Berlin Wall, there was a lot of cheering in German, followed by heart-felt congratulations) but take a dark turn when Phil and Lem fix the multi-language translator…by giving it Phil’s voice (they already had his voice in the computer from when they were making the talking frying pan, which kept screaming when you put it on the burner. And, as Phil pointed out, “it was very critical – ‘do you really need that much butter’ – screw you frying pan!). Greta insists on using the translators (she likes that the voice is warm and friendly and almost gender-neutral), even during sex, but Ted isn’t quite as in to it. His insistence that they not use it ends up derailing their relationship and the deal, as Greta tells him in a meeting that he “was much promising, but not true” (Veronica figures it out: “Damnit Ted, you were much promising but not true, weren’t you?).

Meanwhile, in the no-less-inspired B-plot, Phil and Lem (who Veronica hilariously calls glasses and mustache, even though Ted points out they’re the same person) – inspired by Ted’s request that they hide anything that may seem evil (including both the long-range people-skinning device and the man-eating ficus) – realize that everything they make is designed to hurt people and they are essentially evil scientists (which Phil immediately follows with an “Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha” evil laugh). So they set about trying to find something they can make that isn’t evil (not helping their case: the fact that they also have Nixon’s voice in the computer).

This tied into the slight, but still funny C-plot, which found Veronica locked in a battle of wits with Linda, after Linda showed Veronica a game she invented called LindaBagel, where they have to bounce bagels into an open airvent. Linda dominates at it, which makes Veronica – who has to be the best at everything – very upset. Ted encourages Linda to just let Veronica win but Linda refuses, despite the fact that her place in the Time Waster’s Hall of Fame is secure, thanks to her degree in Art History (as a Creative Writing major, I sympathize). Veronica, meanwhile, tries to get Phil and Lem to make her perfect throwing bagels (which don’t wind up tasting good since whenever you go past 97% high impact carbon, you can taste it), but they decide the line must be drawn here, and refuse to let Veronica use their perfect bagels for evil.

In the end, Ted reconciles with Greta and the two hook-up in his office, but the sound of what appears to be Phil having sex with Ted distracts Linda and allows Veronica to win on her own. Then, as Veronica went to retrieve the victory bagel for her hypothetical trophy case, it crashes through the floor, landing right in front of Phil and Lem.

Needless to say, I loved this episode and thought it was easily the best of the season. As Mike pointed out to me, the better the Phil and Lem storyline, the better the episode and here, they had some great stuff to work with, but I thought Ted’s story was equally strong. All the elements were clicking and the show ended up producing at least five moments of all-time comic brilliance that deserve to go into the time capsule:

1. Phil and Lem realizing they’re evil, followed by Phil’s evil laugh
2. The translator’s deep, angry voice
3. The entire concept of the translator having Phil’s voice and Greta and Ted’s conversations with it
4. The talking frying pan
5.  The perfect, Three Stooges button at the end of the episode

But just about everything worked and this was a truly hilarious episode. Man, I’m really going to miss this show when its gone.

Jonah’s Score: 95

Tangled Up in Wires Grade: A

Hey everyone, sorry about the short Better Off Ted sabbatical. While I was away, we got three episodes, including both my least favorite of the season (the post-Rose Bowl “The Great Repression”) to my most favorite of the season (“Beating a Dead Workforce,” which saw Ted firing on all cylinders). The bad news is that, if my calculations are correct and ABC continues burning off two Ted‘s a night, there’s only two weeks and four episodes left before this show is (most likely) cancelled (the only silver lining is that the show replacing Ted looks rather promising).

My office, despite being a nonprofit, is a rather buttoned-down, professional place, which makes my total inability to communicate without swearing that much more embarassing, especially when it flares up during my presentations at the staff meeting. For the workers of Veridian, this doesn’t seem to be a problem…until they get a memo that instructs them to “now use offensive or insulting language” instead of “not.” Despite a rich history of sending out incorrect memos (like the one about casual Fribsday, which the company maintains will be observed in 2022), Veridian refuses to acknowledge the mistake and, because they sent a memo that said employees have to follow all memos, PG-rated, network-TV approved abusive language ensues.

I do feel like the central premise was a little damaged by the fact that the characters couldn’t really go too crazy, and a lot of the “swearing” was too cutesy, but it inspires the gang to start thinking about their communication. Phil and Lem are taken by surprise at first, mostly because they don’t read the memos (which have have come in handy when testing the genital x-ray). It also raises an old issue of Phil’s: his inability to engage in verbal abuse (except for his dazingly snappy comeback: “you’re right, I need to work on that). Lem helps him out until Phil turns to mathematics to solve the problem, coming up with the perfect insult formula. Things go great until Phil gets a little trigger-happy and uses it on a non-Veridian water guy (“I’m just glad the bottle finally broke”).

Meanwhile, Ted tries to stop the swearing, but Linda suggests that his real problem is that he doesn’t like his underlings to actually say what they feel. So, Ted decides to listen to everybody, which results in a the company’s Meal Ready to Eat (with the main course of Beige Block 3 or what we call stroganoff) coming a head-sized carboard box that contains wine and a mirror so you can look at yourself when you eat.

Finally, thinking about memos fills Veronica with an emotion she identifies as itchiness (others include sugar and drunk), but is probably guilt over the fact that she was competing for her job with Chris Parnell, whose character also has the last name of Palmer and she’s never been sure whether she actually earned the promotion or if a Veridian typo gave it to her. To make it up, she brings him a cake and some herring to smear on it (Veronica doesn’t hate the Dutch, she just holds them to a higher standard) and then agrees to go out with him, where she hears about how terrible his life has been since losing out on the promotion, which guilts Veronica into dating him (she eventually runs over him, which according to her “relationship math, means tonight’s the night!”). Linda’s suggestion that she repeat the word “babies” only makes things worse and its not until Ted finds proof that Veronica was intended to get the promotion (because she’s man-smart!). Eventually, because of her name, Veridian’s memo writer Janet S. Crotum also finds the whole swearing thing to be not that much fun (Ted can’t believe it took the memo to get that train out of the station) and things go back to normal.

All in all it was a solid episode, but I have to dock it for the fake swearing, which didn’t quite work for me. If you haven’t seen yet, check out this decidedly NSFW video of the cast running wild:

That, my friends, is an A episode.

But I’m going to actually go against the general consensus and say that I enjoyed the second episode more than the first, simply because it made me laugh a whole lot more. “The Long and Winding High Road” finds our heroes struggling with doing the right thing. For Ted, that means burying the hatchet in his rivalry with Pete, an opposing project manager who is always competing with Ted’s products (and who even has his own Veronica). Both teams are working on a toy for kids that will use magnets to let them fly (“now children can have hours of repulsive fun!”), leading to the meeting where they try to tear each other’s device down (Pete says that Ted’s has a set of boobs, while Ted says that Pete’s looks like a diaper; Veronica tries to join in, but the best she can muster is “with your diaper, kids won’t have to stop playing to use the bathroom”).

Ted decides its time to put aside their differences (Welcome to More Effective Way to Deal With an Adversary……Ville) and has  Phil and Lem work on some improvements to Pete’s design, but Veronica wants to take him down and Linda, in an attempt to prove that she is not a goody two-shoes, joins in (first by encouraging Rose to smoke, before admonishing her that “every time you smoke, Santa Claus kills an elf). The two hatch a plan to sabotage Pete’s testing by planting a strong voice in the focus group who will trash it: Rose (that whole scene was solid gold although my favorite part was when they debated how to do a derisive laugh). Meanwhile, Ted goes to visit Rose in Veridian’s daycare (where she’s learning art, Chinese, and the weaknesses of the Chinese, echoing Veronica’s earlier joke about going to war with China) and runs into Pete. But, when Pete is rude, Ted decides to sabotage Pete’s testing, by bribing the tester to test Ted’s device first (with a copy of the book Ethics in Testing!).

Meanwhile, Phil and Lem broke the thermostat when playing with a pinata (stuffed with science) and are afraid to tell Veridian because of how the company may get even (last time it cancelled Phil’s gym membership). They try to get Ted to do it but he refuses, encouraging them to take the high road. Instead, they try to con a coworker into thinking she broke it. Eventually they feel itchy guilty and confess, but she threatens to rat them out to the company unless they pay her or fight. As Lem refuses, Phil clocks him in the face.

In the end, Ted, Veronica, and Linda watch as Rose sabotages the testing of their product (which could kill a Jonas Brothers) and, while Pete appreciated Ted’ s help, he found about their attempts to sabotage him, so their relationship is back to mutual hatred. Ted wants Linda and Veronica to go teach the day care group about taking the high road, but instead Linda tells them all the story of how she slept with her cousin’s husband (you know how it is when you’re ovulating).

This episode may not have been as cohesive and satirical as Ted at its best, but “The Long and Winding High Road” made me laugh so hard I didn’t even notice.  All in all, another great night for my favorite, but sadly doomed, sitcom.

Jonah’s Score: 76/85

Tangled Up In Wire Grade: B+/A

P.S. There’s a fansite trying to save Better Off Ted and, while I’m not optimistic, you can still check it out at http://www.savebetteroffted.com

Hey everyone, sorry this is a little late, I’ve been drinking heavily enjoying quality time with my family. For convenience’s sake, I’m going to combine these two reviews into one, super-review, capable of leveling entire cities.

First, “Battle of the Bulbs” which is all about the crazy lengths we go to for pats on the head from the wanton authority figures we love. For Lem, its his cold-hearted, scientist mom (you may recognize Khandi Alexander from Newsradio) who thinks that Lem is a sell-out for working on ridiculous inventions for Veridian Dynamics. Ultimately the two reconcile, thanks to Phil’s drunken righteousness (“Yes, I think you’re sexy. Yes, I don’t have a lot of adult drinks. And yes, I wish I had a third yes.”) in an agreeably sweet moment that (as all agreeably sweet moments do) involves popcorn that pops in your mouth.

But the real action was with Ted and Linda, going to war over their dueling light bulb designs. It started with Ted’s newer efficient light bulbs, which the company is excited to release (thanks to a study that finds that people rank seeing things third, “after hitting things and trying to have sex with things”), until Linda has a light bulb brainstorm of her own: scented light bulbs. Ted turns her down, but Veronica encourages Linda; not just that the light bulb is a good idea (and that it wasn’t) but that she needs to be more forceful (“we shall feast on chicken!). Linda uses her new found confidence to reach new heights, forcing Ted’s light bulb out of the picture (because he couldn’t take the heat, just like his precious polar bears) and bringing a Veridian executive to tears in a meeting. Ted goes to extremes to get the company to notice him, but continually fails to do so. Ultimately, Linda decides she doesn’t like being mean, and Ted agrees to help her, finding his way back into the company’s good graces.

All in all I thought “Battle of the Bulbs” was decent, but a little light on laughs. I enjoyed “It’s Nothing Business, It’s Personal” a great deal more, if only for the return of the Ridiculously Tiny Office. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Veronica’s relationship with Mordor, the wild magician from “Secrets and Lies,” is leaving her too exhausted at work to do anything except fall asleep with her eyes open and make creepy purring noises. Linda suggests that Ted intervene by telling Mordor he needs to cool it a little. But, as Ted learns the hard way, telling Mordor to be less passionate is like telling Ghandi to be less…whatever he was, so Mordor has an affair with Ashley from Accounting. Linda makes Ted tell Veronica, who promptly sends Ted to the Ridiculously Tiny Office (which is a reliable source of hilarious physical comedy, every time someone enters or leaves it). Then she shoots Mordor with a crossbow, unintentionally, although it could have been the word of her subconscious, which is both overprotective and kind of a douche.

Meanwhile, in the most inspired bit of satire from either episode, the company gives Lem a red coat (“It’s differentness makes me say things,” says Phil), because studies have shown that any slight change in the work place increases productivity. This leads to a fierce competition to see who can work hard enough to win the coat, and also a lot of angst over what the coat could mean. Friend turns against friend as the competition heats up (“I don’t want the coat to see me like this”).

Meanwhile, Mordor cheats on Veronica again, in Ted’s office. But Ted stands up to him, and Veronica forgives him (and has a chat with Linda about how great Ted is), while Ted steals back the coat and replaces it with a nice flower.

So I would say these were both good, but not great. There were plenty of laughs and a few sharp points, but for people like me who have been trying to argue Better Off Ted is one of the best comedies on TV, neither of these exactly helped my case.

Jonah’s Score: 64/67

Tangled Up In Wires Grade: B-/B

P.S. Just a friendly reminder to you Better Off Ted fans that the show will be back on Friday with some post-Rose Bowl mayhem, giving us an extra half hour of Better Off Ted this week.

Hey gang, I’m going to be on Better Off Ted duty for the rest of what is likely the show’s final season, and I couldn’t be more psyched. I was pretty skeptical when I first started watching the show, given ABC’s poor marketing, but over the course of its first season, Ted turned into one of my favorite comedies. Its absurdist whimsy and lightning pace remind me of Arrested Development and, if it isn’t quite on that level, it is never less than hilarious and, at times, inspired (I think ABC is missing a big opportunity by not putting it on after Modern Family, although by programming an hour with the two most direct and competent Arrested Development clones, you’d probably be risking creating a ratings paradox that would result in the first time in history a major network had 0 viewers). Better Off Ted also reflects a relatively common TV paradox, which I’ve arbitrarily decided to name Great Episode Syndrome. When a TV show creates an episode as great as “Racial Sensitivity,” people tend to evaluate everything else it does against that one episode, which causes the rest to look unfairly poor in retrospect. I think subsequent episodes of the show may have gotten an unfair rap among fans and critics for not living up to the manic brilliance of that one episode.

But enough soapboxing, how about this week’s episode, which I’m going to ironically say is good, but not quite great. “The Lawyer, the Lemur, and the Little Listener” is all about the importance of having something that’s yours. No one likes to be totally defined by their job, especially if said job is anything like the ones at Veridian, but its not exactly in the company’s best interest to give its workers’ said personal lives.

Linda learns this the hard way, when she finds out that Veridian can control anything its employees create, including her decidedly non-sciencey children’s book, starting Phil as a lemur. To avoid detection, she feigns illness (“I need to go home for a few days and use the bathroom”), but has writer’s block until Phil comes over and helps find a happy ending for his little lemur. But, in a pretty inspired twist, Linda’s publisher turns out to be every bit as evil as Veridian, using her character to sell beer to children in Japan (where, Veronica longingly points out, companies can shoot their employees in the street). So, in perhaps the episode’s sharpest bit of satire, Linda has to beg Veronica to let Veridian take control of the lemur (“say it with me, ‘the glorious company’”).

Meanwhile, Lem strikes up a relationship with a Veridian lawyer/Jessica Simpson-lookalike (he would have introduced Phil to her, but his tongue was a little busy). However, Veridian bills its employees for all hours spent with the lawyers, even the pantless ones (“we haven’t been doing anything legal,” protests Lem), turning her into, essentially, a prostitute for the company. So, even though the idea kind of turns them both on for a while, Lem has to break it off for the sake of his paycheck.

And, as for Ted, Veridian, more specifically Veronica, starts cutting into his time with Rose when it turns out that she is getting a lot of insider information regarding the company’s impending round of layoffs in her day care. They use the information to save a man’s job in a meeting about the company’s amusing hushaboom technology (“war just keeps getting better.”) But things take a dark turn when something Rose overhears causes an innocent man to have a run in with Veridian’s CTU-esque firing troupe. Despite Veronica’s enthusiasm to continue getting information from Rose (“Everyone wakes up for pizza. Or candy. Or a signed picture of Zac Efron.”), Ted calls it off.

All in all, this episode wasn’t quite as funny as last week’s, although it definitely had a lot going on thematically. The satire was sharp, but more in a thoughtful way than a laugh-out-loud way. That said, Portia de Rossi was easily the highlight (“People always like to get their picture taken with me. Like a sunset.”) and I’m hard pressed to think of another sitcom airing right now that I enjoy as much as this one.

Jonah’s Score: 76

Tangled Up in Wires Grade: B+