The largest American corporation Veridian Dynamics works on human happiness: it does things that improve people’s lives. She is also working on devices that will be useful to the military in the destruction of people’s lives. Does the military need a mouse that can withstand temperatures of ninety degrees Celsius? Veridian is up to it. Need a material harder than steel that you can eat? They will come up with. The customer asks to develop a way to turn an ordinary pumpkin into a deadly weapon? They’ll take care of it.
Thad Crisp (Jay Harrington) is the head of research and development. He loves his job and has the best team in the world that can do wonders.
Together with Ted, a certain Linda Zuordling (Andrea Anders) works – sweet, pretty, a little naive. She is in charge of the testing department. Linda has a heightened sense of justice and constantly steals coffee creamers. Ted is always on the verge of falling in love with Linda, but he never crosses this line.
Tad’s boss is the great and terrible Veronica Palmer (Porsha de Rossi). She is absolutely unemotional, she has no sense of humor, while Veronica has a completely steel character and amazing determination.
Tad’s two main research staff are Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett). Phil looks like a lemur. He is weak and easily influenced. Lem is always worried about something and believes that he should more defend his independence and fight for the rights of blacks. They are both excellent scientists, and for them there are no barriers to creating things that are completely impossible at first glance.
***
Not too famous, but at the same time quite worthy of attention, a comedy series in which, in a light and very funny way, the work of a department in a large corporation is parodied.
Head of Department Ted, played by Jay Harrington, is very charming and non-confrontational, while he stands up for his scientists Phil and Lem. Harrington played Ted perfectly: the actor himself is very handsome, but at the same time there is not an ounce of narcissism in him, and this is very valuable.
Veronica Palmer performed by Portia de Rossi is just some kind of holiday! A spectacular woman, an excellent leader, she unquestioningly conveys to Ted and his employees any idiocy invented by the heads of the corporation. The company ordered Phil to be subjected to deep cryogenic freezing for a year: you can be sure that Phil will definitely be frozen and even Ted will not be able to resist this, because the interests of the company are always higher than the interests of some Ted, and even more so some Phil.
Actually, all sorts of idiotic notions of management and make up a certain part of the charm of this series, because the leadership for all sorts of inventions is very rich. Although I will not argue with the fact that the idea of a red coat – it is very, very sound.
Linda is also a curious and likable character. But I’m sorry that the idea of this kleptomania in the name of a heightened sense of justice died out immediately after the first series, it looked very cool.
Well, mad scientists Phil and Lem are an absolutely hilarious couple.
The scriptwriters of the series (by the way, there are already sixteen of them) are excellent: both seasons the series is kept at a very good level and I don’t mention failed or boring episodes there. Well, it’s probably good that the series lasted only two seasons: it would be a shame to see how it slides into complete incoherence, which often happens with TV shows that are not stopped in time.
I really liked it. Easy, fun, funny, witty, and the peculiarities of working in a large corporation are also cool here. I did not regret that I looked, and I can fully recommend it.
Better Off Ted movie meaning
Director: Victor Fresco Cast: Andrea Anders, Rizwan Manji, Jay Harrington, Portia de Rossi, Jonathan Slavin, Malcolm Barrett, Isabella Akres, Jonna Kae Voltz, Terry Rhodes, Maz Jobrani
Series, USA, 2009, 22 min.