Terrible title, critical accolades, cult audience, inevitable cancellation—before Terriers there was Better Off Ted, Victor Fresco’s sharp, silly corporate satire saddled with a name that made it sound like it was about the romantic mishaps of an emotionally stunted man-child who ended every episode by looking at the camera and doing a huge exaggerated shrug and saying, "Welp, guess I'm just better off Ted!" But it looks as though you can stop mourning Fresco (also the mind behind the similarly unusual, similarly short-lived Andy Richter Controls The Universe), at least temporarily: Vulture reports that he’s developing another single-camera comedy for ABC called Sunnyside, about a guy who returns to his hometown in order to raise his family and tries desperately to not turn into his parents—which is a premise so generic, so un-Fresco-like, it’s bound to be a huge hit, right?
That’s true for the show it’s based on, anyway, as Sunnyside is actually a U.S. remake of the popular Swedish series Solsidan. On the other hand, Fresco is working on the show with ex-NBC chief Warren Littlefield and Solsidan writer Henrik Bastin—the same duo who previously imported another Swedish show, My Generation, which isn’t exactly a dream team. (All they need now is Jimmy Smits!) Still, here’s hoping Fresco manages to both rise above his shackles and imbue it with his own weird sensibilities—and hey, Portia De Rossi looks sort of Swedish, right? That might help ease the transition.