Ted review – this foul-mouthed teddy bear sitcom doesn’t feature a single funny joke

Seth MacFarlane’s animated comedy prequel is like a deliberate attempt to ignore everything its creator has ever learned. Bloated episodes drag on without raising a smile – it’s a total disappointment

We live in an age of reboots, reimaginings and resurrections. The proliferating platforms, the appetite and expectation for entertainment of all possible kinds on demand, means that the disinterment of old intellectual property with any kind of pedigree or former success attached to it becomes more frenzied by the day. Sometimes, it results in Cobra Kai (five – soon to be six – brilliant, award-winning seasons of a return to the characters from the Karate Kid films); season three of Twin Peaks (a 2017 hit) and, more recently, Donald Glover’s much-improved small-screen take on the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt vehicle Mr & Mrs Smith.

And sometimes it results in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (a return to Stars Hollow 25 years on that fans still cannot talk about without crying tears of enraged betrayal); Gossip Girl (which so entirely missed the insanity and magic of the original you could only watch in horrified fascination); and now Ted.

Ted aired on Sky Max and is available on Now TV.