As the star and creator of multiple ongoing TV series, as well as a creative exec behind a plethora of other in-development projects, Seth MacFarlane is obviously busy AF these days. And as he and the rest of The Orville's cast and crew are hard at work putting the delayed Season 3 together, it looks like MacFarlane will be reprising his film role of the hard-living teddy bear Ted for a new streaming TV spinoff.
NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service has put in a straight-to-series order for Ted, based on the pair of extremely successful feature films from Universal Pictures. (The first was surprisingly the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever that wasn't a sequel and was based on original IP.) While Seth MacFarlane isn't fully on board yet, he is indeed in negotiations to once again serve as the voice of the cute and conniving titular bear, and he's also set to take on an executive producer role.
While Peacock's announcement shared the above details about Seth MacFarlane's involvement, nothing was said about the Ted films' human characters, such as Mark Wahlberg's central character John. That fact, combined with the fact that Wahlberg isn't known for his scripted TV work, probably means John won't be around for much more than a potential cameo, with Ted finding someone new to get raunchy with.
Seth MacFarlane's production company Fuzzy Door will be handling the Ted series alongside Universal Content Productions (UCP), which is also behind Peacock's upcoming Battlestar Galactica quasi-reboot and Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, among many other fan-pleasing projects. This will be the second Peacock series for MacFarlane and Fuzzy Door, which already has the unscripted series The End Is Nye in the works with TV entertainer and science enthusiast Bill Nye. Not the mostly likely bedfellow with Ted, but then what is? A pic-a-nic basket? Wait, that's another bear.
Interestingly enough, both Seth MacFarlane and Peacock have both spent the past year and change putting work into reviving and rebooting older TV and film projects. Peacock released acclaimed returns for Saved by the Bell and Punky Brewster, with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Queer As Folk and Vampire Academy reboots in the works. Meanwhile, MacFarlane is attached to new iterations of Smokey and the Bandit (TV), Good Times (TV), and Revenge of the Nerds (film). I can't honestly say I expected Ted to be the next TV continuation that both parties doubled-down on, but I guess foul-mouthed animals are meant to buck expectations.
Audiences likely won't see Ted hitting Peacock's streaming library until some point in 2022, so here's hoping there are some interesting casting announcements on the horizon. In the meantime, there are tons of other exciting shows to look forward to in the 2021 Summer TV season.
