Ted - Season 1

Whether you like his style of humour or not, one cannot deny the contribution that Seth McFarlane has made to the comedy sector. Family Guy and American Dad remain some of the most popular animated comedy series on television, and stacking these up with A Million Ways to Die in the West and the two Ted films, many have grown up with McFarlane's projects, regardless of their quality. I'm one of said people and perhaps that is why the new Ted TV show has resonated with me so well, because while it's clear that this series has its flaws and feels familiar in a multitude of ways, it's also - and crucially - friggin' hilarious.

For those who are unaware of what exactly the Ted series is, this show is a prequel to the films starring Mark Wahlberg. It's set in the early 1990s, shortly after Ted returns home to the Bennett family in Boston after the stardom from his shock birth faded. Around this time, John is in his teens, and this leads to all kinds of adventures in school, at home, and generally speaking, all the other common and stereotypical places you would find a sitcom family involved in hijinks.

This is a key element to understand, the sitcom familiarity, as Ted is a show that uses the same core formula as that of Family Guy, for example. It's the typical nuclear family theme with a few tweaks, as instead of a sister there's a cousin, and instead of a baby or a beloved pet you get Ted, a crude-talking, intelligent, and charming living teddy bear. When you boil down the premise to its most basic elements, Ted isn't anything we haven't seen before, and neither are the narratives of each episode. Nothing that would surprise ever happens, it's all highly predictable but that's completely fine because there's never any need for it.

The writing and the dialogue of this show is brilliant. The jokes pretty much always land, and since there are only a core few main cast members, plenty of effort and care is placed into meaningful character development. The humour is crude and often dark, but if you enjoy the comedy style that McFarlane has used his entire career, you will be laughing out loud and have a huge grin plastered across your face throughout every episode. The cast also bounce off one another and make for interesting performances that entertain.

But regardless of the actual live cast, it's Ted that steals the show once again. The animated bear is outright hilarious and delivers his punchlines and jokes with precision and finesse. McFarlane's comedic timing and phrasing remains one of the best around, and after wrapping up the seven episodes that make up Season 1 of this show, you can't help but long for more from the witty, savage and lewd anthropomorphic stuffed bear.

So, while this show does feel very familiar and lacks originality in many of its core premises and elements, the humour and situations that Ted and the Bennett family find themselves in are more than enough to make this series an enjoyable watch. While McFarlane's style of humour might not be for everyone, those who do resonate with the comedy star's tendencies will get plenty of laughs and giggles out of this series, and for a comedy show, that's all you could really ask for.