A second season of Peacock’s “Ted” hit the streamer this week, but we probably won’t get a third according to series creator and voice star Seth MacFarlane.
The series, a prequel to the “Ted” comedy films, sees MacFarlane reprising his role of the foul-mouthed teddy bear. The character is a CG creation that takes up a lot of screen time in an otherwise real-world comedy series.
That means it costs money to realise him on screen – the more screen time he has, the more it costs. That has now become an issue, says MacFarlane in a recent interview with The Wrap.
He tells the outlet that production costs are possibly too high to continue, which is why the last episode of the season sees the young John entering a gym and becoming the Mark Wahlberg version of his character in the films:
“What I kept hearing [from Peacock and Universal] was, ‘Listen, the show is really expensive to produce and there’s no way to do it at a lower cost.’ So I said, ‘All right, I hear you loud and clear.’ So I wrote the last scene with Max [Burkholder] walking into a gym, presumably coming out as Mark Wahlberg in the first ‘Ted’ film.
So [showrunners] Brad Walsh and Paul Corrigan and I kind of painted ourselves into a corner. Is there a way to do it? There’s always a way to do anything. But at the moment, it might take some narrative acrobatics. There’s no plan that I’ve heard of at the moment to do Season 3.”
He goes on to say the amount of CG required is like “doing an ‘Avengers’ movie every 22 minutes.” The trade says Peacock has not made a formal decision on whether “Ted” will receive a third season at present.
The issue isn’t unexpected. Paramount hit a similar problem with its “Knuckles” TV series; the “Sonic” spin-off became infamous for the limited amount of screentime for its core character, who appeared in 75 minutes of the show’s 168-minute total length.
An animated “Ted” series was unveiled by Peacock in May 2025 with Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried and Jessica Barth reprising their roles from the original film.
