Remember Seth MacFarlane’s Ted? It’s getting a spicy high-school prequel series on Peacock

Seth MacFarlane has good news for fans of Ted, the foul-mouthed star of his comedy movie Ted and Ted 2: a brand new series featuring the bilious bear is set to start streaming on Peacock from January 11.

The show is set before the first film, in 1993, with Ted the bear and his best friend John trying to deal with everything that high school throws at them. It’s set between the two timescales of the original film, which showed John as a young kid and then as a grown-up, and its sequel. MacFarlane is writer, executive producer, showrunner and director, and of course he’s the voice of Ted too.

There’s no Mark Wahlberg this time around, because the John in this show is just sixteen. He’s played by Max Burkholder of Parenthood in a cast that also includes Alanna Ubach (Euphoria) as his mom, Scott Grimes (The Orville) as his dad and Giorgia Whigham (13 Reasons Why) as his ‘politically correct’ cousin.

What can we expect from Ted the TV show?

Judging by the trailer, it’s going to be as funny and as foul-mouthed as the two films. Although, given how many high school movies we’ve seen on the best streaming services it’ll be interesting to see whether it does anything new with the usual coming-of-age tropes.

MacFarlane’s involvement means it’ll be true to the films, good and bad. While Ted has a lot of fans, the films also got a lot of negative reviews. Deadspin called the first film “soulless, angry-white-guy comedy at its worst” and said “this is a smug, nasty little number”, while the UK’s Daily Star said “MacFarlane is reduced to making increasingly laboured references to the 1980s”. On the other hand, Fox News called Ted “comedy gold” and the UK’s Daily Mail said it “has many hilarious moments”. Those are reviews for the first film. Reviews for the second aren’t so great either, with an average 45% from the Rotten Tomatoes critics and 50% from viewers.

It’s safe to say that if you liked the Ted films you’re going to like this, and if you didn’t then you almost certainly won’t: the trailer should make it pretty clear which camp you’re going to fall into.

Ted will be streaming on Peacock from January 11.

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