Season 3 of Ted Lasso may have closed down the chapter of the much-cherished Apple TV+ series starring Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddhingham, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Juno Temple, Phil Duster, Nick Mohammed and others, but it hasn’t put an end to our love of heartwarming and wholesome TV shows. In an age that is rather clouded with series and movies that are consistently picking up serious and grave concepts to frontline their stories, bright, hopeful and optimistic portrayals are deeply missed.
From time to time, we get a good look at those themes in new title premieres, but even with the Apple TV sports comedy coming to an end (at least for now), you don’t have to worry because we’re not running out of such shows anytime soon. Keeping in mind that Sudeikis’ series was fleshed out using the amalgamation of themes like sports comedy, workplace comedy and brightly comforting drama tones that focus on various relationships and friendships, we’ve picked out some more shows that work out similar combinations to keep our spirits high. Their overall depictions are just as positively uplifting and lead us in an emotionally stirring direction.
Emotionally Stirring Shows Like Ted Lasso
1. Brockmire
Hanz Azaria plays the titular character he created himself for a comedy web series years before it becoming the leading face of the sitcom. Sudeikis’ eponymous character was also created for promotional period of elsewhere gig before it stuck the landing as the Apple TV series’ face. Although Ted and Brockmire take completely two different directions in their career, with the former finding himself heading a Premier League football team and taking big shots, the latter is a baseball announcers who take a major hit after an embarrassing stunt, and starts anew in a small town. Yet both their stories are tied to finding a professional high, while also stitching the gaps in the relationships with their partners.
2. Shrinking
In a startling turn, Jimmy Laird, a therapist himself grappling with severe grief oversteps his ethical boundaries and starts sharing his true thoughts with his patients, thereby impacting both his and their lives. Along with Bill Lawrence and Jason Segel, the Ted Lasso actor (and also one of the writers), Brett Goldstein is also one of the creators of Shrinking, yet another Apple TV+ original series. Just like its sister show, Segel’s comedy drama title offers us a balanced mix of lighthearted moments and serious discussions. While complex conversations surrounding mental health were only coherently foregrounded in Sudeikis’ show in Season 2, Shrinking‘s whole premise relies on it.
3. Friday Night Lights
A coach holds the power to make or break a team. Lasso has already proved his strengths to us even though he didn’t have to in his story, but even before he made a name for himself, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) took over the charge to guide the Dillon Panthers. As Ted’s entry changed everything AFC Richmond and its players, Taylor’s mentorship kickstarts a new trail of changes in this American football drama. Like Ted, Taylor, too, struggled strike a balance between his work as a coach, family and his personal identity. The 2006 NBC sports drama series also stars an ensemble cast, with each of its characters leading a life worth digging into separately.
4. The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
Over the course of its three seasons, Ted Lasso has brought out several accounts of father-son relationships, but with Season 3 we finally also got a first hand insight into healthy mother-son dynamics. Although the Disney+ original series in question first came into notice due to the nostalgic pull of Disney’s sports comedy films from the ’90s starring Emilio Estevez, the 2021 finds its gravity in Evan’s relationship with his mother, who, throughout the two seasons, not only roots for her young son’s ultimate dream to be a better hockey player, but also reminds him along the way that it’s okay to take a breather and enjoy life as it is.
Once again, as the Apple TV show has AFC Richmond, a team of underdogs who count on Ted, Coach Beard and the rest of the club officials, Disney’s junior hockey team of the Mighty Ducks has Coach Bombay and Alex’s (Lauren Graham – Evan’s mother) strong unit to rely on, in addition to the friendships they find with each other long the way.
5. Ballers
Just like Jason Sudeikis is the poster child of the Apple TV+ original show despite an ensemble cast supporting him, the HBO series found its centre of attention in Dwayne Johnson in 2015. Following the same genre tropes of a sports dramedy, Stephen Levinson’s TV series revolves around Spencer Strasmore, a retired NFL star who makes his way around a new career path by stepping in as a manager. As we all warmed up to the grand cast of Ted Lasso, you’ll end up pushing for the Ballers’ cast’s happy ending too, especially with all the drama they have to face before reaching the endline.
6. Brooklyn Nine Nine
Does this series even need an introduction? Andy Samberg’s chaotic persona feeds well into his pivotal character Jake Peralta. Alongside him, we have his colleagues at the fictional 99th Precinct, all of whom are led by the intellectual Captain Raymond Holt, whose personality is on the far end of the spectrum from Jake’s ways of life. Yet, the latter looks up to him as a father figure he wishes he had during his childhood, and along the way somehow their entire squad finds a family in each other that not only solves crimes at the best of their abilities, but also pulls out endless chuckles out of the audience while executing their tasks at hand.
7. Big Shot
While this Disney+ original’s head coach may not have had a softer tone initially, he always had his heart in the right place like Lasso. Just as Ted Lasso Season 3, more than any other season of the season specifically focused on Ted’s hearty desire to forge a strong bond with his son despite the many miles between them, Big Shot‘s Coach Korn (John Stamos) feels compelled to improve his relationship with his daughter, especially since the separation with his ex-wife. Picking up on the stock, yet much-loved elements of a sports drama, this series equally pushes for profound friendships built inside the locker room and the idea how they can put character development into motion as well.
Moreover, as Ted initially shared a fiery dynamic with Rebecca, the owner of AFC Richmond, Korn’s ties with Holly Barrett, the assistant coach at Westbrook School (where he starts coaching the girls’ basketball team) are just as temperamental and fired up by banters on both sides that keep us entertained through and through.
8. Cobra Kai
The old Karate Kid actors reprise their roles in this American marital arts dramedy. Looking into the “Miyagi-verse” from Johnny’s eyes pushes him to reopen Cobra Kai, a Karate dojo and further push his rivalry with Daniel. While its originally streaming platform – YouTube – may be a turn off for some, the sam people who’ve overcome that barricade have fallen deeply for this series.
Believing it to be a worthy successor of the Karate Kid movies with even better edge in some scenarios, the show has held up its end of the bargain by entertaining audiences and becoming their all time favourite titles. Other than boasting its nostalgic themes, the show offers some great characters up for discussion, while also tackling some dark themes at times in the most enjoyable way possible.
9. Schitt’s Creek
So here we have an ugly town called Schitt’s Creek where an originally well to do couple goes bankrupt and now their only valued possession is the said town in question. Often regarded as an underrated hit, the show has offered the audience a joyful ride of all kinds of emotions, laughter being at the top of the tower.
The most warming accounts of the series is that it offers us all a dysfunctional family like many sitcoms, and the best classic approach delves deep into their relationships with each other, thereby helping them find family in each other over the seasons. With a well-rounded cast, this old school sitcom title presents a much-loved ensemble gathering that hits us right in the feels of nostalgia.
10. GLOW
Much like the Apple TV series, the Netflix show was also a surprising entry. Just as Ted was confused about witching lanes with from American football to football in England, a sport he barely knew much about, the leading GLOW character played by Alison Brie also resorted to a different career path from being an out-of-work actress to finding stardom with the glamorous world of women’s wrestling in the ’80s.
Dealing with a crew of misfits who undergo a major professional transformation through the sparkling vision of the sport, the series takes on many severe issues of real life like sexism, gender politics and more, but presents them in a lighthearted fashion that pushes us to root for the “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling”, just as Ted Lasso made a rising underdogs case for the Richmond team.
Is there any other show that is influenced by the same factors or themes? Let us know some of your suggestions in the comments section below.