Voting for the Primetime Emmys closed on Monday as Ted Lasso was receiving a string of headlines over the backlash to Season 2. As Libby Hill points out, Apple TV+ appeared to time Season 2 with the Emmy voting. "With Emmy voting closed, it feels safe to speculate about how such a power play might play out, how it might have played out for Ted Lasso specifically, and what we can glean from the past about the benefit of crafty TV scheduling when it comes to the Emmys," says Hill. "First, Ted Lasso. Despite becoming a pandemic favorite with its first season, and its second season garnering even better reviews, the series had a bit of a bumpy ride in recent weeks over in the discourse wading pool. Right around the time of the show’s extremely over-the-top Christmas episode — which dropped just a week before voting resumed — something of a backlash erupted around the series. Despite 'Carol of the Bells' being foregrounded in the idea that Ted is extremely depressed about being alone for Christmas and well along the path of drinking himself sick while watching It’s A Wonderful Life — perhaps the best example of a dark piece of culture mislabeled as saccharine — some viewers felt that it was a bridge too far and the show had veered into fully cloying. At this point, an avalanche followed, as Ted Lasso naysayers came off their couches with full-throated complaints that some seem to have been nursing for some time. Cue backlash, backlash to the backlash, and so on and so forth. While much of this fervor was contained largely on social media and in new media Slack channels, there’s still a question of whether or not the pushback registered with Emmy voters whatsoever. This is, of course, one of the risks of airing new material when your old material is in the process of being judged. If you’re Apple TV+, you want Emmy voters to watch new episodes of Ted Lasso and be reminded of how much they love it. That’s the best case scenario. But if, heaven forbid, the second season of the series had been lackluster, would that take some of the shine off the first season?"
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TOPICS: Ted Lasso, Apple TV+, Nick Mohammed, Emmys