Ted Creator Seth MacFarlane Explains Why Peacock Series Has No Plans for Season 3: “Really Expensive”

Ted has been a major success with fans, but it turns out that series creator Seth MacFarlane has no plans to continue the Peacock streaming series with a Season 3 at this time due to how expensive the show is to produce. The first season of Ted ended up being such a hit with Peacock that the streaming service picked it up for a second season, and that hot streak already looks like it’s continuing with the debut of that second season this month. But despite how well it’s done, there are no plans to keep it going with more episodes.

Ted series creator Seth MacFarlane had previously gone on record noting that there were no plans in place to continue the TV series with a third season, but speaking to The Wrap, MacFarlane went further into detail about why the show had no plans to continue, “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.’” Thus MacFarlane wrote those final moments of Season 2 as more of a series finale.

Seth MacFarlane Explains Why Ted Won’t Return for Season 3

“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,” MacFarlane began. “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,” the creator explained. Thus further cementing that the final moments of the season were truly meant to be a button on the prequel series overall.

Read Next

Ted Season 2 Cast Talk Cracking up On Set, MacFarlane’s Genius & Butt Jokes [Exclusive]

“So [showrunners] Brad Walsh and Paul Corrigan and I kind of painted ourselves into a corner,” MacFarlane explained about the potential to continue Ted beyond what was written at the end of the second season. “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.” While it might not seem impossible to continue, it also doesn’t seem likely.

Ted Will Continue With New Animated Series

While Ted not continuing with more of the live-action series is certainly a bummer, it’s not the end of the franchise overall. The TV series being so expensive to produce is also why a third feature film didn’t happen either. Instead, Seth MacFarlane is shifting the franchise over to an animated series that he believes is going to be released sometime between 2026 and 2027. Speaking to ComicBook about why he made the jump, MacFarlane explained how it’s easier to work with everyone’s schedules.

“The one thing the animated series allowed us to do, that we couldn’t do with a live-action show, was pull together people like Mark Wahlberg and Amanda Seyfried – people who are really busy in the film world and would probably not be available to do television in any capacity – to come in and do an hour’s worth of voiceover work each work is a little more manageable for them with their schedules,” the creator stated. “So, it allowed us to pick up after the second movie finished.”

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

HT – The Wrap