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Basic Facts:

Episodes: 13
Runtime: 22 min.
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Premiered: 2009

Format:

Series

Genres:

Comedy

Created By:

Victor Fresco

Actors:

Andrea Anders, Isabella Acres, Jay Harrington, Jonathan Slavin, Malcolm Barrett, Portia de Rossi

Made In:

USA

Premiered at:

ABC

When this series started first, back in march I wanted to watch it even then, but I was afraid that it will get can­celed soon. But, for­tu­nately that didn’t hap­pen, and first sea­son ended with 13 episodes, with 13 more announced for sec­ond sea­son that is sched­uled to start in Decem­ber. Now, the DVD is released, and I finally can get to watch the full sea­son. And I loved it! Really excel­lent com­edy shot using sin­gle cam­era setup.

Story and characters

Series is set in fic­tional com­pany Verid­ian Dynamic that has world wide influ­ence, con­ducts research of prac­ti­cally every­thing, a model cor­po­ra­tion resem­bling many real ones. And the set­ting is the research and test­ing of the company. Story is told by Ted Crisp suc­cess­ful and yet con­sci­en­tious father of 9 years old girl Rose, who is head of the research. His boss is Veron­ica Palmer (another great per­for­mance by Por­tia de Rossi), devoid of con­science and emo­tions that cares only about her career. Linda Zwordling is work­ing in test­ing depart­ment, she is beau­ti­ful and inter­ested in hav­ing rela­tion­ship with Ted. And the part of the main cast are to bril­liant, yet awk­ward sci­en­tist, geeks if you will Phil and Lem.

Each episode starts with a dif­fer­ent made like com­mer­cial intro show­ing all what is wrong with cor­po­ra­tions like Verid­ian. All intros are really great and funny. The whole series actu­ally shows how the cor­po­rate sys­tem work, how they are dri­ven by iner­tia most of time, ruled by end­less bureau­cracy and inflex­i­ble bosses (like Veron­ica). In many occa­sions sit­u­a­tions will remind you of real com­pa­nies, or maybe your own (if you work in such environment).

Bet­ter Off Ted

My favorite char­ac­ter is definitly Linda, played by Andrea Anders. She had a great role few years back in an awful show Joey (Friends spin-​off), and she was the only rea­son I watched Joey in the first place. Hope­fully, there will be more great roles for her in the future.

Pro­duc­tion

Series is cre­ated by Vic­tor Fresco, who worked on My Name Is Earl. Series is done great, and they tried (and suc­ceeded for the most part) in recre­at­ing believ­able research cen­ter of a company.

Con­clu­sion

Really excel­lent com­edy. And great tim­ing, so grab the first sea­son (2 DVD’s set) and watch it before sec­ond one starts in about 2 weeks.