Hallmark Channel
Robert Buckley stars as local TV weatherman Ted Cooper (in Corning, New York), a man known for having the worst experiencing during the Christmas holiday. Ted is preparing to travel to Lakawanna, NY (about two-and-a-half hours away) to do some remote promotional pieces for a charity event being held to raise funds of a local hospital. Lackawanna is also Ted’s hometown, and his sister Kate is spearheading the event (and no one questioned whether this might be a conflict of interest for Ted). She has put a lot of faith in him to help them raise the necessary funds with his reporting … if he can survive the holiday. Before Ted leaves, he sees that his co-workers have created a list of mishaps, everything from chipping a tooth on a candy cake to spending a night in jail, and are taking bets much to his chagrin. Things get off to an immediate bad start as his car won’t start the morning he is to leave so he takes the bus. Exiting the bus he grabs his suitcase … but it turns out it is one that looks just like his, and this one belongs to a female passenger. For some reason, Ted never contacts the bus company to report the mix-up, instead just wearing the various sweaters in the suitcase (he does, apparently, wear the jeans he already had on instead of changing into the ones that don’t belong to him). His first remote goes well, even though he gets some ribbing for his pink, cropped sweater, and later he decides to put up the lights on the outside of his sister’s house. Which leads to his first injury as he falls off the ladder and the storage box falls on his head, sending him to the hospital where he is surprised to find his high school classmate Hope Miller working as a doctor. She had returned to town a year earlier to care for her father before he passed away. There seem to be some sparks but they both go their own ways when she determines Ted is not concussed. He then runs into his old elementary school teacher Ruth, and helps her look for the perfect Christmas tree. The ‘lumberjack’ accidentally hits Ted in the face with the tree, slightly scratching his eye (no mention if this was the dreaded blue spruce but it very well could have been), forcing him back to the hospital right before he is to go on air again. But he needs an eye patch and after his off the air, some of his co-workers celebrate their win in his bad luck sweepstakes.
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Nothing deters the perennially optimistic Ted (not even an anaphylactic reaction to oatmeal cookies with peanut butter in them), and even though he doesn’t see it, everyone else can see that there is a spark between him and Hope that goes far beyond their doctor-patient relationship. Ruth and her pals take Ted under their wings and help him shot for a new wardrobe, and he and Hope make plans to have lunch together. After leaving the restaurant, Ted realizes he’s locked the keys and his phone inside his sister’s car, and while trying to get the window down the police arrive and arrest him for an attempted burglary, causing more joy and winning at the TV station (although as Ted seems to know everyone in town, and could have very easily proven it was his sister’s car because his phone was inside, he still gets arrested). As his relationship with Hope continues to progress in a most promising way (she pulls out their high school year book and shows him the big red heart he drew around her picture) and they plan to go out to dinner, his bad luck shows up again as his sister needs her car so he has to take a rideshare, which is more of a party limo, and he accidentally leaves his phone in the car. Late for his arrival at Hope’s house, she calls his phone and one of the girls answers, telling her Ted is with her and they are going to a party (turns out the girl thought the driver’s name is Ted but it’s Ed). Now thinking Ted is a player just stringing her along, she begins to have second thoughts about whatever it is they have been developing so she goes out to dinner with her co-worker Sydney instead. Ted finally arrives at Hope’s place, and when she doesn’t answer the door he leaves a note to explain what happened, but as he leaves the wind blows the note away. He wonders why Hope hasn’t called him and realizes his phone is missing, but after trying to locate it by calling, driver Ed calls Kate’s phone and tells him he has it. Ted can finally get to Hope and try to explain what happened, but by this point she’s a bit furious, moreso that he isn’t angry at her for immediately believing the worst about him, and that just makes her more angry because he is such a people pleaser. He admits that he just hates being an imposition on others, and she has to tell him that advocating for himself is not imposing — and that includes the job offer he has for a station only fifteen minutes away from Lackawanna which he doesn’t want to take because he feels he owes his career to the station manager in Corning and doesn’t want to step on any toes. As it comes time for his final report on the charity event, Ted is actually feeling a bit hopeless (and Hope-less) that his cheery disposition is what is actually holding him back. Will he and Hope finally be able to find a common ground so they can explore their obvious chemistry? Kate and Sydney are certainly doing their best to make Ted and Hope find some Christmas magic.
Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! is one of Hallmark’s funniest holiday movies headed by the totally charming Robert Buckley (who also contributed to the story and was an executive producer). Even though the screenplay by Russell Hainline begins a bit contrived — the ‘banter’ between Ted and anchorman Ken feels much too forced and scripted — things begin to settle into place once Ted arrives in Lackawanna. Of course we also have to question why Ted never contacts the bus company about the luggage mix-up or why he allows himself to be arrested, but we’ll just overlook those details and chalk it up to his personality of not wanting to cause trouble for anyone (even though he’s the one having all the trouble). The story lays on the laughs and makes the budding relationship between Ted and Hope develop naturally rather than forcing them together in the first fifteen minutes. Their meals together are full of fun conversations, and even when they get trapped in an escape room (the attendant fell asleep at the controls), it gives the more time to bond so it hits a little harder once Hope misjudges the situation when Ted loses his phone. The relationship with Ted and Kate also works well, and some of the more humorous moments come as Ted hangs out with Ruth and her senior citizen pals who power walk all over town in the retro 80s track suits (they even make him an honorary member, and Hope really questions things when she sees Ted in a matching track suit). Some of the situations may be contrived, but this is meant as a broad comedy and it is firing on all cylinders.
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Buckley is absolutely terrific as Ted. He handles the physical comedy with great skill but the strength of his performance comes from the way he uses his voice. He just has a way of saying things, raising his voice an octave at times, that just makes whatever he’s saying even funnier. It really is one of the best comedic performances we’ve seen on Hallmark in some time. And his chemistry with Kimberley Sustad feels totally natural in all of its initial awkwardness. Buckley shows that Ted obviously has (and has had) a crush on Hope since they were kids, but he’s also so intimidated by the prospect of her liking him too that he just tries to play things off as a friendship … until he can’t. And even in some of Ted’s worst moments, Buckley always keeps that smile on his face. It is a charming, endearing and funny performance. Sustad is also terrific as the slightly more guarded Hope, who may be more like Ted than she wants to admit as she just has built up a wall around her, not wanting to invest her feelings in anyone. It takes Sydney to give her that push to pursue Ted, and just the way she looks at him tells us that those walls are coming down. After Hope misconstrues the missed date situation, Sustad shows that Hope’s walls have gone back up, and she again has to confront Ted about his desire to please everyone while confronting her own issues. Sustad gets to deliver some wry one-liners, but every time she looks at Ted her eyes clearly tell us that she’s got all the feels for him. Buckley and Sustad just work perfectly together which makes the audience root even harder for them to make things work.
Meghan Heffern is perfect as exasperated sister Kate, placing all of her faith in Ted to do the promos for her event while also trying to make him grow a bit and pursue Hope, even if it calls for her to take the bull by the horns and ‘accidentally’ invite Hope to a Christmas costume party an hour before it’s supposed to start (after a hilarious and cringey moment seeing Ted on the doorbell camera attempting and failing many times to call Hope himself). Heffern clearly portrays her frustrations with Ted, but also clearly loves him and wants the best for her brother. Reedan Elizabeth is also terrific as Sydney (according to IMDb, this is just her fourth credited role (she recurred on Alert: Missing Persons Unit and guested on The Last of Us and Invasion), Hope’s no-nonsense co-worker and friends at the hospital. She delivers some wonderful dialog aimed at pushing Hope to open herself up to Ted, making you wish she was your bestie as well. Brendan Penny has a few fun scenes ribbing Ted on the air, and Barbara Pollard is a real stand-out as Ruth. She has one of the funniest lines when Ted says something to her about catching up with her favorite student, and her timing is perfection. Even she can see the spark between Ted and Hope and organizes her crew to get Ted to make a move. She is just wonderful.
While Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! may at times feel a bit contrived, it’s the performances of Buckley, Sustad, Heffern, Elizabeth and Pollard that make us overlook some of the more maddening situations which are a result of Ted’s people-pleasing personality, allowing us to sit back, root for Ted and Hope to let their guards down, and just laugh out loud at Ted’s predicaments and the snappy dialog. Everyone does great work here, but Buckley is just superlative with his comedy skills, making this one totally rewatchable as a holiday perennial.
Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! has a run time of 1 hour 23 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview – Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper!
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Listen to songs featured in Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! Are You Ready for the Holidays by Grand Mystic, I Want To Dance with Father Christmas by Roger Drew, 99 Christmas Presents by Sid Narbom, Electric Avenue & Amelia Rose, You’re On My Christmas Wishlist by henry parsley & Katib, Merry & Bright by Jamra, We Still Believe in Christmas by Andy Powell & Vance Westlake, Deck the Halls by Andrew Lauzon, Rayna Slobodian & Carnie Hall, Christmas City by Stuart Roslyn & Matthew Foundling & We Wish You a Merry Christmas by Julian Cavard & Raphael Nauleau