Theodore Crisp (Jay Harrington) is the senior vice-president of the Research and Development department at Veridian Dynamics. It’s no wonder why he’s “Better Off Ted.” After all, Ted’s smart, in a position of power, plus he’s liked and respected by most everyone he works with (except for those 50 and older). Plus, because he’s one of the higher-ups at Veridian Dynamic he escapes getting sucked into being an unwitting guinea pig for one of their many inhumane experiments. This mega corporation is on the frontline of innovating and inventing things that change the world, but only after a lot of tweaking.
For once Fox isn’t the responsible party for canceling a great show without giving it time to build an audience. This time ABC was the culprit, since they canceled “Better Off Ted” after two short seasons, giving the show a mere 26 episode total. It’s a satirical comedy set at a large company who wants to make a financial profit no matter the moral cost. The employees get used for whatever the company wants and they often get pulled in to cover for this amoral company’s latest scheme. Ted’s boss, Veronica (Portia de Rossi), is always more than willing to trade petty things like human life and morality (especially other people’s) for money. Veronica once said, “‘Money before people,’ that’s the company motto.”
“Better Off Ted” is a unique sitcom with it’s themes of arbitrary rebellion and corporate apathy. It doesn’t feature the typical sitcom stories of spouses fighting over who ate the last doughnut, or who has to talk to the next door neighbor about their barking dog (cough, “King of Queens,” cough). “Better Off Ted” also smartly avoids typical slacker and “dumb” character jokes. Here we’ve got a bunch of smart, dedicated characters who work hard at their jobs despite the internal and interpersonal wars they’re waging.
Ted is trying to raise his daughter with a moral code, and yet he does all kinds of unethical things in the name of Veridian Dynamics, like convincing one of their scientists to let them cryogenically freeze him just to see if it can be done. His coworker, Linda (Andrea Anders), is great at her job, but she doesn’t like doing it for such an evil company, so she finds ways to rebel arbitrarily, like wasting paper towels or stealing creamer. And when I say stealing creamer, we’re not talking petty theft, we’re talking Ocean’s Eleven-level creamer theft. Day after day you’ll hear someone shouting, “Where the hell is all the creamer” while she’s shoving bag loads of it in her desk. She also likes to make a lot of personal phone calls, which Veridian Dynamics, in its dedication to its employees, likes to let her know with a printout of said calls… not that they want her to pay, but that they want to let her know that they know.
“Better Off Ted” has writing sharp enough to cut through adamantium. One of the best aspects of the show is its commitment to portraying just how heartless this corporation is. Each episode features a short commercial produced by Veridian Dynamics that is supposed to send good advice or messages about the company’s dedication to the public, but they always miss the mark and reveal their true callousness and selfishness. Take a look at these examples:
* Veridian Dynamics. Bosses. Everybody has one. Without bosses, we’d be like these worms- disgusting. Bosses make everything better. So listen to your boss. And don’t question them. Otherwise you’re no better than a worm. Veridian Dynamics. Bosses. Necessary.
* The Veridian Foundation… helping the world, then telling people about it makes us feel so good. The Veridian Foundation… Helping people. By telling people we’re helping the world.
* Veridian Dynamics. Doing the right thing. It’s important. What does it mean in business? We have no idea. We know what wrong is. Actually, no, we don’t. Because we’re a successful company, not some boring ethics professor. Veridian Dynamics. Right and Wrong. It means something. We just don’t know what.
* Veridian Dynamics. Friendship. It’s so important. But it’s different at work. Time spent with friends at work robs your employer of opportunity. And robbing people is wrong. Veridian Dynamics. Friendship. It’s the same as stealing.
And Veridian’s heartlessness doesn’t stop there – their inventions are just as amoral. For example, they come up with a new sensor system that activates lights, doors, etc, to save the company money. However, it works by detecting the light reflected off the skin, and for some reason it can’t sense black people. So instead of reverting back to the old sensors (because it would be too expensive), the company installs separate manual doors, water fountains, etc to be used by anyone the sensors don’t sense, a.k.a black people. Needless to say, no one was very happy about that.
Veridian Dynamics has also tried to weaponize pumpkins, sold perfume that attracts hornets, and created a machine that would make people think they’re hearing the voice of God, which they plan to use as a marketing tool for advertisers.
“Better Off Ted” sadly didn’t have a very long run, but there are 26 episodes to watch and enjoy. The intelligent writing delivers five main characters that are flawed enough to always be entertaining. Each of them exhibits high levels of brainpower, but battle to keep their souls intact… except for Veronica – if she ever had a soul she lost it long ago to Veridian Dynamics in exchange for a promotion. She explains it the best when she says, “I’m different from other women, Ted. And by different, I mean better.”
So if you’ve never seen this one-of-a-kind sitcom, give it a try, and get ready to laugh while fighting off vaguely uncomfortable feelings towards corporations. Now I’ll leave you with bit of knowledge from one of the scientists, Lem (Malcolm Barrett), “[The syringe] can’t come out for at least a minute – the same rules apply here as for losing your virginity.”
