During the World Series, FOX promoted the hell out of Prison Break (along with a few of their new shows and some of the returning ones). It worked, and the show has succeed in the ratings and has gotten good critical praise.
I'm not sure if they promoted Arrested Development, but they sure didn't as much as Prison Break. Sure the World Series was low rated (except maybe in Chicago and Houston), but that does not explain why FOX continued to ignore AD.
Yesterday, FOX announced that they were pulling AD -along with the lame Kitchen Confidential - for the remainder of the November sweeps. This comes on the heels of AD's return to the schedule on November 7 after the baseball induced hiatus. The double episode only scored about 4 million viewers (where a rerun of Prison Break the week before scored 5.9 million). They also cut the episode order from 22 to 13. Basically, they cancelled the show (without "officially" saying it) and told the producers of Kitchen that they should not expect an order for anymore shows beyond the 13 they requested.
Thus, Arrested Development now becomes another notch on the wall of shows that die long before they should. The show is funny, brilliantly acted and written. The narration from executive producer Ron Howard is as droll as the comedy on the screen.
So why did this happen? Well, obviously -and maybe a tad stereotypically - it failed because Americans are stupid and TV networks create shows for an auidence with a 12th grade education. Its the only way to explain reality programming and endless parade of procedural shows.
Really.
Satire is lost on Americans, and shows like Arrested Development (and others like Undeclared, Wonderfalls and Freaks and Geeks) which swim in its ocean, seem to get lost. Comedy shows like Two and Half Men, Still Standing, Yes, Dear, Joey, Will & Grace, all the WB and UPN "urban" sitcoms somehow all remain on the air, despite them all -with a few exceptions - have leached the humor out once was a vibrant business. And AD's cancellation comes on the heels of ABC picking up the pedantic Freddie for a full season.
There is no justice.
While FOX has been known to take risks with such shows as 24, the aftermentioned Prison Break, The X Files, The Simpsons (which has lost a crap load of its originality) and Malcom in the Middle (which has outlived its usefullness), it has continued to go after the lowest common denominator with such shows as American Idol, The War at Home, Family Guy and its endless association with ubiquitous - and hateful -Paris Hilton. And the network acts like baboons on crack when it comes to its programming. Basically, if you are not a hit from the get go, don't expect to survive. So with that philosophy, it seems surprising that FOX would develope a show such as this, knowing full well that its core audience -the straight, white male - will ignore it.
Maybe its a case of just not letting another network take the show -even though ABC,NBC and CBS are all going after the same demographic as FOX.
Because Arrested was a risky show -which (borrowed from the AD web site) revolves around Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), the “normal” one in a family of crazies, who is forced to stay in Orange County and run the family real estate business after his father, George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), is sent to prison for shifty accounting practices. While George Sr. spent the last year in the slammer discovering his newfound Judaism and recording inspirational tapes, Michael spent it picking up the pieces and trying to teach his offbeat family how to live without an endless expense account. All the while, Michael has also been trying to do right by his 14-year-old son, George Michael (Michael Cera), an earnest kid who works diligently at the family’s frozen banana stand. The Bluths are led by manipulative matriarch Lucille (Jessica Walter), a socialite who is as icy as her martinis. Then there’s the oldest son, GOB (Will Arnett), a womanizer and struggling magician (sorry, “illusionist”) whose biggest trick will be to make a real job appear. The youngest brother is Buster (Tony Hale), a neurotic professional grad student and glorified mama’s boy (he spent 11 months in the womb). The Bluth siblings are rounded out by cause-obsessed sister Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), who is married to the hapless Tobias (David Cross), a doctor-turned-actor who might get more work if he wasn’t a self-proclaimed “never-nude.” Lindsay and Tobias are the ultra-permissive parents of Maeby (Alia Shawkat), a 14-year-old who loves finding unique ways to rebel against their overindulgence. It substituted belly laughs and paint-by-number jokes with sly humor and it let its very talented cast -along some brilliant guest star turns - get real loose with a show that played with a less than linear plot line. The show -in its first season -earned 7 Emmy nods and walked away with three, including Best Comedy Show (a rarity in the TV award business). And while in season two, the producers made it more accessible, by toning down the criss-crossing story arcs, and making each episode more self-contained and exiled the subtle references while adding physical comedy, the show was still the funniest on TV.
But it seems that all was for naught. Americans, who seem to want an endless parade of Law & Order and CSI clones and think lame comedies such as Freddie, and whatever ABC airs on Fridays are funny is killing perhaps the most hilarious show in decades.
Through their stupidity and desire not be challenged by TV, shows like Arrested Develpoment are forced to die long before the deserve and while, thanks to DVD's, they will live on, its still a sad commentary and one that forces me day in and day out to consider finally pulling the plug on cable and keeping the TV only for DVD's.
Maybe then I could finally get to Confederacy of Dunces -another piece of satirical work - that would be lost on NASCAR (i.e. most FOX viewers) set of folks who think TV Guide is equivalent to reading Les Miserables.
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