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You might not watch another film as charming and comforting as the Hallmark Channel’s Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! which is out this weekend on the channel. The film stars Robert Buckley as a lovable weatherman, Ted Cooper, who happens to be prone to bad luck around the holidays. When a minor injury reunites him with his high school crush, a doctor played by Kimberley Sustad, the two start to spend time together and realize what they’ve been missing. It may sound like any old Hallmark movie, but the script is chock full of funny jokes and warm holiday vibes; you’re going to want to keep this one on repeat this holiday season. MERRY CHRISTMAS, TED COOPER!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? Opening Shot: A local weather man, Ted Cooper (Buckley) delivers the weather report to viewers in the upstate town of Corning, New York, starting off with a hearty, “Good morning, Corning!” The Gist: Ted Cooper is not just a weather man. He’s a man prone to horrible Christmas bad luck. Getting stuck in chimneys, being attacked by possums who live in his Christmas tree, he’s experienced it all, to the point where everyone in his newsroom, including his on-air rival, anchorman Ken (Brendan Penny), has started a pool to bet on what kind of Christmas disaster will befall Ted this year. This holiday season, Ted is heading to his sister Kate’s house in his hometown of Lackawanna. Not only is he planning to celebrate Christmas there, he’s also planning to help promote a fundraiser for the local children’s hospital. But Ted’s bad luck strikes immediately. His car breaks down so he has to take a bus to his sister’s. His luggage is mixed up and he’s stuck wearing a sorority sister’s pink sweats all week. After two separate incidents land him in urgent care, he runs into his old high school teacher Ruth Mittens (an A+ name if ever there was one), and his high school crush, Hope (Sustad), who is now a doctor. Ted and Hope are flirtatious, but it isn’t until Ted’s sister Kate invites Hope to a Christmas costume party (everyone has to dress as their favorite holiday character) that they really click. When they go on an official date to an escape room and get locked in for the whole night, they truly get to know each other and open up and share their deepest, most vulnerable feelings, and then they almost kiss, but right then, the escape room unlocks so they never quite consummate their feelings. Gotta keep that tension alive! While Ted is Mr. Good Vibes, there are some moments of minor conflict, like when Hope assumes Ted is a player who’s been hanging out with other girls (turns out, he lost his phone and it was just a random stranger in a ride share who answered it), and when Hope calls Ted out for not being assertive and asking for what he really wants in life, a pattern we see him repeat over and over. By the end though, Ted does let Hope know exactly what he wants, and it’s her. Our Take: It’s not an overstatement to say that Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! is filled with wall-to-wall laughs and charm; even in its most serious moments, you can’t help but want to be a part of the world these characters inhabit. The tone is set from the opening scene which features some hilariously catty banter between Ted and his newsroom rival Ken, which flows into the flirtatious, good-natured rapport that Ted has with Miss Mittens and her walking club and ultimately to the chemistry Ted has with Hope. Ted’s got stories for days (well, mostly the one about how he met Mark Harmon), and he never turns down a chance for a good time. Another actor could have played Ted a little more exhausting in his optimism, but here, he’s simply everyone’s best friend. Last year, my favorite of all the holiday films on Hallmark was the wacky and fun The Santa Class, which also starred Kimberley Sustad, and she’s done it again, starring in what is one of the best Hallmark movies I’ve seen so far this year. (And I’ve seen… a lot.) Sustad has a knack for playing a not-quite-straight man in these films. Often surrounded by quirky, outlandish characters, Sustad remains the most grounded of them all, while still showing off her own impressive comedic skills, delivering punchlines with an easy, dry wit. Her chemistry with Buckley is off the charts, a testament to both of their charms, but Buckley deserves a lot of credit for how effortlessly magnetic he is. He’s irresistible to all, not necessarily in a romantic way but in the way he draws people in and gives them his attention, and watching him banter with just about everyone made me wish this wasn’t just a one-off movie. (Given how much of Ted’s mishap-filled backstory we know, I can already envision a prequel in addition to a couple sequels.) At one point in the film, Hope refers to Ted as “New York’s most likeable man,” and that perfectly distills what most of the movie is about. Robert Buckley’s performance in Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! is unflappable and optimistic, and truly funny, too. The movie hinges on his performance, and he creates a character and an entire world around him that’s easy to love – Ted Cooper is someone you want to spend time with. Parting Shot: “I guess my Christmas bad luck is finally behind me,” Ted tells Hope as they walk through the fundraiser event hand-in-hand. As they walk away a 10-foot-tall sculpture of a gingerbread man pitches forward and falls on the ground, narrowly missing the oblivious couple. Performance Worth Watching: Every time Ken the newscaster, played by Brendan Penny, is on the screen, he steals his scenes with his smug yet hilarious performance. (You might recall that Penny and Buckley were briefly co-stars on Hallmark’s Chesapeake Shores and this film makes a great case for them to reunite as much as possible.) Memorable Dialogue: “This year? This is the year that old Ted Cooper’s Christmas bad luck finally turns around!” Ted tells his colleagues as he stands in front of a white board that says “Possible Misfortunes” and has odds of any one of them happening to Ted written next to them. Among the options, “Impaled by reindeer antler” and “Chokes on a chunk of fruitcake.” Our Call: Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! was written by Russell Hainline, who was also responsible for writing one of last year’s biggest holiday hits, Hot Frosty, another comedic Christmas romance that combined sweet sincerity with a wink and a dash of silliness. The truth is, Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! is much funnier than Hot Frosty was, and while I doubt it will get the same level of attention that film did last year, it’s far more deserving of it. STREAM IT! Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
