Ted, the TV prequel to Seth MacFarlane's caustic movies, has been renewed for a second season. Ted the talking, bilious bear is at high school in the TV show, and it's been a massive hit for Peacock: as Variety reports, it's the streamer's most-watched original show to date, and it was the US's top streaming comedy for more than two consecutive months when it became available to stream.
The success of the show was never really in doubt: the first Ted movie was a big hit, pulling in nearly $550 million on a low (by movie standards) budget of $65m, and while the sequel wasn't quite so successful it still brought in a very respectable $215 million.
Retro vibes and an R-rated Alf
Ted wasn't just a US hit. As Deadline reports, in the UK it was Sky's biggest US comedy launch in over 20 years; in Canada it was Showcase's number one show and the top-ranked streaming show on StackTV; and in Australia, it was Fox8's biggest international series premiere in two years and the biggest US comedy launch ever on streaming service Binge.
It's clear that Ted has found a winning formula, so don't expect dramatic changes in the second season: while details of the season are still under wraps it's likely to stick closely to the format of the first season, which mixed gut-busting laughs with surprisingly warm-hearted storylines. It's not going to win over anybody who didn't like the movies – Variety's description of Ted as an "R-rated version [of] Alf" is either a recommendation or a scathing review depending on your perspective – but clearly there are lots of people who loved the films and want more ursine cursing.
As Rolling Stone said of the first season, "The carpet-bombed gags don’t always hit, but when they do their cleverness resonates, especially for those of us who were alive and consuming culture in the series’ early-Nineties timeframe." CNN is a fan too, writing: "[Ted] might not qualify as high art, but in its unpretentious silliness, this Peacock comedy is still more than bear-able."
