A hypothetical fourth season of Ted lasso seemed like a pipe dream from the moment people started doubting its possible existence. There’s something almost poignant about Apple’s unwillingness to bid the series a final farewell, even though it did signal with what we’d call pretty extreme measures that the Season 3 finale was a pretty good way to end it. After all, nobody likes to watch a loved one — the huge amounts of subscriptions and Emmys that the popular sports comedy regularly brought the streamer — say goodbye, and so AppleTV+’s refusal to admit that things were over was almost sweet.

Now, however, it seems as if the streamer “It’s not over until it’s over, although Jason Sudeikis kind of said it was over” attitude is starting to move into the area of ​​“actual spending”, with Deadline Today, it was announced that Apple has officially decided to exercise its contract options on series stars Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein and Jeremy Swift. (Those are the three members of the show’s main cast who are apparently insured by the British actors’ union Equity.) This comes ahead of reported plans to sign new SAG-AFTRA contracts with the rest of the show’s cast (including co-creators Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt), whose contracts expired in the 15 months since the show’s third-season finale aired. Assuming the series can get its people in order — and most of the cast has has expressed interest in returning if asked – then it would be time to convene a writers room again to figure out where AFC Richmond goes next.

All of this is, of course, quite clearly a question mark, and no bigger question mark is Sudeikis himself, who has previously said that the third season of the series is “the end of this story we wanted to tell,” and whose limited availability beyond that was one of the reasons for the potential ending. Even though Ted himself does not play a prominent role in this hypothetical new season, Sudeikis was an important and often the dominant (after co-creator Bill Lawrence stepped down to focus more on other projects) creative voice behind the scenes of the series, so it remains to be seen what role he will take in the future, if it Is a progress.

So, yes: still extremely hypothetical, but money has has changed hands at this point, which is as good a sign as any that there might be something here to believe in.