Better off Ted - Die Chaos AG

All 13 first-season episodes--including the "Pilot," "Through Rose-Colored HAZMAT Suits," "You Are the Boss of Me," "Jabberwocky," and "Secrets and Lives"--are featured in a two-disc set. 5 hrs. total. Widescreen; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital Surround; Subtitles: English (SDH), French, Spanish, Portuguese. **13 episodes on 2 discs. 5 hrs.**Sneaky, madcap, and completely addictive, Better Off Ted is a delicious lampoon of the corporate culture that puts profits over anything resembling human decency. Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington) is the breezy, confident manager of the research and development department of Veridian Dynamics--a massive multinational corporation that does everything, from growing cowless meat to weaponizing pumpkins. Crisp has already had an affair with his blissfully heartless boss, Veronica (Portia de Rossi, from the cult favorite sitcom Arrested Development), which inhibits him from having an affair with the smart, lovely, somewhat neurotic new product tester Linda (Andrea Anders, Joey), lest he be seen as a guy who sleeps around the office. He has to look after his top two research scientists, Lem and Phil (Malcolm Barrett and Jonathan Slavin), who are brilliant but socially hapless, and his precocious young daughter Rose (Isabella Acres), whose mother abandoned them to save countries in Africa. From this web of relationships are woven absurd stories about cryogenically freezing employees, motion sensors that don't detect dark skin, Medieval Fight Club, hair growth formula, and phosphorescent squirrels. Better Off Ted is that rare sitcom with a genuinely distinctive sense of humor, one that may take a few moments to catch--but once you've gotten in sync, the show is gut-bustingly funny. De Rossi has the most flamboyant role and gets to be deliriously merciless, but the whole cast is impeccable. The show was created by Victor Fresco, who previously conceived the brief-lived but much-loved Andy Richter Controls the Universe. The only flaw of The Complete First Season is the lack of any extras--a show with this much wit and imagination deserves some bonus features. --Bret Fetzer