Ted Season 3 Isn’t Happening — The One Big Reason And What’s Next

Despite strong viewership, Ted’s live-action run just hit a wall: Season 3 is scrapped over costs—but creator Seth MacFarlane says the franchise isn’t done.

If you were hoping for more of Ted wreaking havoc in live-action, brace yourself. The show pulled in strong viewership, but a third season is not happening in the way you probably expected.

No live-action Season 3, and the reason is not subtle

Creator Seth MacFarlane says there is no plan for a Season 3 of the live-action prequel. The sticking point is cost. Industry estimates put the show at roughly $8 million to $10 million per episode, and the takeaway from the folks at Peacock and Universal was simple: that price could not come down.

It is like you are doing an Avengers movie every 22 minutes with the amount of CGI that it takes, not only to animate the bear, but to act the bear.

To underline how close this thing was to a handoff, MacFarlane and the writers even drafted what could serve as a series finale: Max Burkholder's character walks into a gym, a direct bridge into the first Ted film with Mark Wahlberg. And yet, despite the clarity of the creative endpoint, Peacock has neither officially canceled nor renewed the series. It is a strange limbo where the show did the numbers, but the spreadsheet won.

Ted is not going away, though: an animated sequel series is rolling

Instead of more live-action, MacFarlane and Peacock are moving forward with an animated series that picks up right after 2015's Ted 2. The upside: animation solves the weekly-CG-bear problem that made the live-action version so pricey and slow to produce.

It is certainly less complex than producing a show with an animated CGI teddy bear on a weekly basis, which makes you feel like you are doing a Marvel movie eight times a season.

The animated show's voice cast brings back the core trio from the films:

• Mark Wahlberg as John Bennett
• Amanda Seyfried
• Jessica Barth

Bottom line: live-action Ted is tapping out after two seasons because the dollars do not make sense, but the bear lives on in animation, right where Ted 2 left him.