Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		0.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

"Be a goldfish."

Reviewed by Randy Miller III December 17, 2025

Roughly 18 months after their release of the same-named Blu-ray set (during which time I insisted it wouldn't be continuing any time soon, which was followed by the announcement of a new season), Warner Bros. has reissued the first three seasons of Ted Lasso -- collectively titled "The Richmond Way" -- on UHD. Sporting a well-deserved bump in video quality, it looks better than ever... but sadly, there's still no Dolby Atmos option and no extras are included either. Owners of the Blu-ray set can jump right down to the A/V section below for more details, but newcomers are welcome to read the spoiler-free summary below, which has been slightly re-tooled from my previous review.

Developed by SNL alum Jason Sudeikis, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, writer/actor Brendan Hunt, and SNL scribe Joe Kelly, the sports comedy-drama show Ted Lasso enjoyed a run on Apple TV+ from 2020-23 before its planned ending... so even with the fourth season now in production and likely arriving later next year, these first three seasons stand on their own. They're big on heart and hit the ground running with an original premise, memorable characters, sharp dialogue, and sporadic drama that slugs you in the gut when your guard's down. A love of football is optional.

As its cover image implies, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is a seemingly naïve optimist whose mustachioed grin belongs on a Judd Apatow movie poster. It's an expression that's regularly plastered onto his face beginning with the very first episode, where the moderately successful Kansas-bred college football coach is unexpectedly hand-picked to manage a fictional English Premier League soccer team, AFC Richmond; it's something of a ragtag group now owned by Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) after her recent divorce from husband Rupert (Anthony Head). Simply put, she would like nothing more than to sabotage the team Rupert has cared about for most of his life -- clearly much more than their turbulent 12-year marriage -- and she sees Ted as a bumbling fool who will run it into the ground. Needless to say, he endures a chilly reception from the players, the new owner, the press, and of course the local fans, who are rightfully furious that this damn Yankee seems to know absolutely nothing about their sport. Ted smiles anyway.

This "grin and bear it" approach only gets Ted so far... but in most cases, it's far enough. Since the club -- led by both the grumpy, aging team captain Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and the talented but cocky young Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) -- is unreceptive to Ted's charms, he builds a rapport with two fellow underdogs: Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed), the team's kit man with a hidden talent for playmaking; and Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), owner Rebecca's meek assistant and patriarch of a large family. For a while, Ted's only other support is from his wife Michelle (Andrea Anders) and son, but it's strongly implied that they're going through marital difficulties from which they may not recover.

As the first and best season of Ted Lasso progresses during ten 30-minute episodes, it strikes an extremely careful balance between comedy, drama, and pathos. This is pretty impressive stuff for a character Sudeikis originally created and performed for NBC Sports' coverage of England's real-life Premier League almost a decade ago; it's essentially the equivalent of an SNL short being made into a long-form series, whereas most of them aren't even deep enough to fill a 90-minute movie. The performances are uniformly great from Sudeikis on down, which also includes Ted's right-hand man of few words, coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), team PR marketer Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), talented new recruit Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández), journalist Trent Crimm (James Lance), and more. In all honesty, this first season is akin to "lightning in a bottle"; from almost every angle, it hits the ground running with energy to spare. There's barely a weak episode in the bunch -- only a few extremely minor speed bumps on the way to its exciting finale.

Part of the fun of Ted Lasso's first season is the totally wholesome and disarming way its title character stubbornly rebuilds his team from top to bottom. From secret cookie-baking to thoughtful gifts and shrewd confidence boosting, he's a figurative beacon of light that can't help but eventually win over most everyone else he meets. In a lot of ways, Ted Lasso reminds of the Paddington franchise... and not just because of the London backdrop. There's not a shred of malice in this character's heart so we can't help but root for him, his inner circle, and of course his struggling team as they desperately try to avoid relegation. Don't know what "relegation" means? Don't worry. As mentioned before, the backdrop of soccer/football is unavoidably ever-present but you absolutely don't need to be a die-hard or even casual fan of the sport to follow along or, of course, enjoy yourself: this story is overwhelmingly seen from the perspective of an American with no knowledge of it whatsoever. It even regularly pokes fun at odd cultural and social mores on both sides of the pond in a way that's funny but, like its main character, clearly not mean-spirited at heart.

Literally and figuratively, Ted Lasso's second and third seasons are both bigger than the first: not only is there a larger episode count (12 apiece), but they run about 5-15 minutes longer in the second season and occasionally over an hour during the third. In some cases this is a good thing, as new and returning supporting characters are now focused on in a way that broadens the series' emotional depth. But in my opinion it disrupts Ted Lasso's pace more often than not, with the majority of these detours feeling occasionally rushed rather than carefully well-balanced. There are obvious exceptions, such as the fan-favorite episode "Rainbow" (S2, E5, and for many the show's finest hour), "Man City" (S2, E8), "Inverting the Pyramid of Success" (S2, E12), "Sunflowers" (S3, E6), "Mom City" (S3, E11) and, of course, the poignant and crowd-pleasing original finale "So Long, Farewell", which closes out the third season on an emotionally satisfying note. While there's no telling where the show will go from here, these 34 episodes can still be enjoyed as a stand-alone story... so if future seasons suck, consider this eight-disc set as "the complete series".

Episode List

Season One: (Discs 1-2)
"Pilot", "Biscuits", "Trent Crimm: The Independent", "For the Children", "Tan Lines", "Two Aces", "Make Rebecca Great Again", "The Diamond Dogs", "All Apologies", " The Hope That Kills You"

Season Two: (Discs 3-5)
"Goodbye Earl", "Lavender", "Do the Right-est Thing", "Carol of the Bells", "Rainbow", "The Signal", "Headspace", "Man City", "Beard After Hours", "No Weddings and a Funeral", "Midnight Train to Royston", "Inverting the Pyramid of Success"

Season Three: (Discs 6-8)
"Smells Like Mean Spirit", "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea", "4-5-1", "Big Week", "Signs", "Sunflowers", "The Strings That Bind Us", "We'll Never Have Paris", "La Locker Room Aux Folles", "International Break", "Mom City", "So Long, Farewell"

Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: These screenshots are sourced from the earlier Blu-ray edition.

There's surprisingly little to say about Warner Bros.' 2160p/HDR10/Dolby Vision transfer of Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way, a native 4K production, other than that it offers a clean and trouble-free upgrade of the earlier Blu-ray release... which, if you remember, was actually only a seven-disc set. The 12-episode second season now fortunately gets three discs (2x100GB, 1x66GB) rather than being crammed on two BD-50s, which previously led to sporadic amounts of macro blocking and very light posterization that have since been completely eliminated.

That's one obvious improvement, and other highlights of Ted Lasso's 4K facelift are similarly tied to its native format; mainly in the areas of fine detail and color resolution, as these noticeably benefit from both the increased resolution (boosted by a higher bit rate, of course) and HDR10 by way of Dolby Vision, which again is the way it's presented on Apple TV+. Textural detail and depth show tangible increases when compared to select counterparts on Blu-ray, but it should be noted that Ted Lasso's cinematography is polished enough to look terrific on both formats. Bright whites are especially strong here, especially overhead fluorescents and TV lights in the press room and elsewhere. Colors likewise appear more accurate with with a noticeable boost during darker sequences, especially when vivid hues are adjacent to deep shadows. While I'll admit that these collective improvements aren't transformative by any means (and probably much less perceptible on smaller displays), those who were holding out for Ted Lasso in its native 4K will be happy to know that its looks as outstanding as expected, whether your main points of comparison are the streaming versions or the Blu-rays. Those who own the previous set, however, will find themselves at a crossroads since (a) there are no other improvements besides for the visuals, and (b) you likely already shelled out $70 or more already.

Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix offers a solid surround sound presentation of this dialogue-driven show, one that features surprisingly little on-field action but nonetheless makes its presence known when needed. Conversations are cleanly recorded and perfectly intelligible (depending, of course, on your ear for various accents), while foreground and background effects are well-mixed and don't fight for attention. Discrete effects and the rear channels are put to good use for location-based ambiance, be it a rowdy locker room, boisterous pub, or of course a passionate crowd. There's also plenty of room left over for the terrific score and soundtrack: much of it is music by Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons, but there's also no shortage of needle-drop music cues by the likes of A Trible Called Quest, The Streets, Onyx, Biz Markie, Elastica, Robbie Williams, Vampire Weekend, David Bowie, The Lumineers, Queen, John Fogerty, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nirvana, Digable Planets, Bob Dylan, Run the Jewels, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Oasis, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Blur, Rick Astley, and many more. (That's 20% of the featured artists, to put things in perspective.)

That said, it's extremely disappointing that Warner Bros. didn't take the opportunity to update Ted Lasso's audio to Dolby Atmos since its presented that way on Apple TV+. I complained about this in my Blu-ray review last year, and if nothing else it would have given existing fans a stronger reason to upgrade. A missed opportunity, for sure.

As before, optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during all 34 episodes.

Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This eight disc set is surprisingly packaged differently than its Blu-ray counterpart: although the slipcover is more or less identical, inside you'll now find three multi-disc keepcases (each holds 2-3 discs apiece, with a hinge if necessary) that have different cover art for each season. This is a nice touch and a sure sign that future season releases -- either individual or another "complete series" set -- will be packaged this way. Sadly, though, no bonus features are included again, and of course we don't get the poster from the earlier set. This is really disappointing given the price tag and, along with the recycled 5.1 audio, doesn't really make a strong case for this release's existence.

Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ted Lasso is a solid sports comedy-drama series that enjoyed a popular run on Apple TV+ from 2020-23 before its planned ending; as is, it's a really enjoyable effort despite the first season being its best run of episodes. The show's deft mixture of both comedy and drama is amplified by memorable characters, great performances, and a lot of heart, and of course you don't even need to be a die-hard fan of soccer/football to enjoy it -- in fact, it probably helps if you aren't. Perfectly suited for both drop-in viewing and marathons (I flew through the first season in a day), it also has a decent amount of replay value which makes an even better case for owning a physical copy.

Fans already got these three seasons on a solid Blu-ray set in 2024 and, with Ted Lasso's surprise upcoming fourth season now on the horizon, WB has shrewdly fast-tracked this original run -- subtitled "The Richmond Way" -- on UHD, which is technically terrific news considering Ted Lasso's native 4K origins. It looks better than ever, but only those with larger displays will really see tangible differences here. I'd be able to recommend this set much more strongly if it was either (a) released last year, or (b) given an audio upgrade to Atmos or even a few extras. As it stands, this feels like a cash grab for the holidays... but if you've got money or gift cards to burn, there are worse ways to spend them.