Apple TV+ Needs Severance, Not Ted Lasso, to Grow

Apple TV+ has delivered some of TV’s most satisfying seasons across different genres over the last few years. From the comedy hit Ted Lasso, to Harrison Ford’s therapist office show Shrinking, to its dystopian futuristic sci-fi series Silo, Apple TV+ has put out some entertaining and meaningful seasons. Severance, the streamer’s most popular current series, left audiences jaw-dropped in its twisty, tonally manipulative Season 2 finale, leaving audiences eager for more.

Despite its small-screen successes, Apple TV+ is still losing more money than it earns. Euro News says Apple TV+ loses roughly one billion euros yearly despite its ambitious investments in successful TV shows. With approximately five billion euros invested in the streamer and its exclusive projects yearly since its 2019 beginning, Apple TV+ still has almost ten million fewer viewers than even its closest competitor, Hulu. The Apple streamer has roughly forty million subscribers, while Hulu has forty-eight million — rendering Apple TV+ a less profitable platform.

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Now Official, Severance Season 3 Needs To Be Series Swansong

Severance is a show that should not stay beyond its welcome and that means Season 3 should be its final installment.

In order to grow, Apple TV+ needs to up its marketing game and focus on its tight-knit shows like Severance and Shrinking, instead of forcefully renewing Ted Lasso despite a satisfactory Season 3 and series finale. With other ongoing projects, such a renewal appears like a desperate act on Apple TV+’s part to up viewership, demonstrating an apparent lack of faith in their slow-growing but critically acclaimed ones. Leaving that room for those other ongoing shows — not to mention new projects — will prove more profitable.

Ted Lasso‘s Renewal Could Lead to Quality Drop

Ted Lasso, starring Jason Sudeikis, is a sports dramedy about the titular, relentlessly positive and supportive football coach being hired to train an English soccer team, AFC Richmond. Its owner, Rebecca Welton, hired Lasso hoping he would make her team fail, hoping to hurt her soccer-loving ex-husband’s feelings. She expected that Lasso’s inexperience and unrealistically optimistic demeanor would crash the team.

Instead, his nurturing but firm and attentive nature allows the team to move up in the soccer world, leading to three excellent seasons of fun for all ages. Ted Lasso goofily faces new obstacles working with the team and all of his trainees’ teenage and game-related problems, setting the series’ lighthearted tone. Ted Lasso won hearts everywhere and is often credited for boosting Apple TV+’s streamer prestige.

However, upon Season 3’s production and premiere, it became clear from the narrative’s direction and the cast and crew’s mouths that Season 3 was written as Ted Lasso‘s last. In an episode of the podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends With Zack and Donald, showrunner Bill Lawrence confirmed that the show was initially pitched as a three-season deal, and Sudeikis had only mapped out three seasons of work on the show before planning to close out:

“You can’t sustain that [ongoing TV]. You have to have some… some ups and downs to the storytelling. But you know, I think that— I think that ours is a little different because, you know Jason, and [where] he’s kind of mapping it [Ted Lasso] out is to three. It’s a three season show.”

In the very same 2020 podcast, Lawrence admitted that “after the third season, I will desperately try to get Mr. Sudeikis to do it.” However, he also shared how he had no vision for a Ted Lasso future beyond Season 3. Now, Apple TV+ has renewed the show for a fourth season despite the fact that only three seasons were planned.

Ted Lasso could be headed for a disaster akin to Dan Harmon’s sitcom Community’s fourth season, commonly referred to as the Gas Leak Year. As the only season without Harmon involved, Community Season 4 suffered from gag and narrative recycling, lackluster character retreads, and far-fetched character directions that forced one co-star to leave halfway through. Ted Lasso Season 4 might disappoint fans and harm Apple TV+ similarly without careful consideration.

Ben Stiller’s Severance Saves the Day (and Can Continue Doing So)

Ben Stiller, Severance‘s executive producer and primary director, has put out two incredibly successful seasons. Despite a notable three-year wait between them due to industry strikes and creative differences, Severance Season 2 delivered an epic outing that answered Season 1’s climactic cliffhanger with more mazes than exits. To top it off, Severance surpassed Ted Lasso to become Apple TV+’s most viewed TV show to date in Season 2. This both decreased Apple TV+’s profit losses, and changed the streamer’s marketing tone from Lasso‘s up-beat positivity to one of isolated, chilling darkness. Fans are hyped for Season 3, which has already received promising updates. If Season 3 delivers as well, it means good news for Apple TV+’s future.

Fans feel divided over Severance‘s future. Many want it to continue for years, while others believe Season 3 should close the series. How long the show will remain on air is still unknown, even though there is reportedly a planned end. Severance could theoretically continue so long as the story yields more insightful entertainment, as a planned end does not equate a necessitated stopping point. A lot of new ideas introduced in Severance‘s second season could feel wasted if the show stops in Season 3 as well, which cannot be said about Ted Lasso.

Thus, Apple TV+ will most likely find continued growth through consistent Severance support, along with solid continued budgeting for other TV shows like the aforementioned Shrinking and the Gary Oldman-starring drama Slow Horses. These are plentiful properties with lots more story to tell — or at least, more story than Ted Lasso, which some viewers found to be losing charm by its latest season. Hopefully, Severance continues to surprise and subvert, and Ted Lasso surprises the naysayers with a strong fourth outing. But only one of them is more definitively reliable than the other — which Apple still has not learned and needs to.

Sources: CBR, Euro News and iHeart

Severance

Release Date

February 18, 2022

Showrunner

Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman

Directors

Ben Stiller

Writers

Dan Erickson

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  Tramell Tillman

  Seth Milchick