Disclaimer: If you haven’t ever watched Arrested Development, stop reading this, and go out and buy all three seasons. Thank me later, then be sure to feel bad about the fact that you never watched this show when it was on television. For shame.
It was with great sadness last week that I finished watching the third and final season of one of the best television shows of all time, Arrested Development. Not sadness as a result of some sort of tear-jerking storyline, nor sadness due to the fact that such a great show had reached it’s end (at least it ended while it was still funny). My sadness was mostly due to the way in which it reached it’s end, which was a total lack of good ratings. Basically, nobody was watching the best show on tv, and that makes no sense at all.
It’d be easy to blame FOX for this total failure, based on the fact that they’ve screwed up so many other good shows by not marketing them properly and constantly changing up their timeslots (Undeclared and the first go-around of Family Guy being prime examples). I’m not sure they’re to blame this time, though. They gave AD a pretty sweet gig right off the bat – hitting clean-up for the Simpsons on Sunday night. Despite crap ratings, I think it stayed there for two full seasons – a pretty good vote of confidence from the normally incompetent people at FOX.
Are critics to blame? I’m not sure if anyone actually cares what critics have to say about television, but people still use the term “critically-acclaimed” as a synonym for “good” when describing tv shows, so I assume someone cares about what these faceless people have to say about television. In any case, no, the critics aren’t to blame on this one – whoever they are, they all seemed to love AD, even giving it multiple Emmys.
No, the blame for AD’s failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the North American viewer. I’ll refrain from blaming “stupid Americans” because that’s lazy and puts Canadians on some sort of unecessary and incorrect pedestal of good-taste – television ratings in Canada closely resemble those from the U.S. week-to-week, except we watch Canadian Idol for some reason, and way more hockey. Nobody was watching this show on either side of the border, and that’s pretty awful.
For a long time, I assumed that the reason AD was failing with viewers was because of the lack of a laugh-track. Since a lot of the humour is based on awkwardness and ridiculous situations, I thought maybe viewers weren’t sure what was supposed to be funny. The popularity of formulaic “dumb loser with an impossibly-hot wife” sitcom crap likes According to Jim, Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens seemed to support this hypothesis. I don’t think that’s it anymore, though – the Office and My Name is Earl both seem to be doing pretty well, and both of them are laugh-track free, and can be equally as awkward and ridiculous as AD (though still not nearly as good).
Some people say that Arrested Development was too complicated, as there were a lot of “inside jokes” that only long time viewers would understand. While that may be true, there were still a lot of one-off jokes, and the inside-joke angle really only adds to it’s re-watchability. I suppose this might be a good explanation, but I still don’t fully buy it – Lost and 24 are both pretty complicated, but they’ve both always done well.
I don’t know… maybe there is no right answer as to why such a genius show failed. With the news that the head writer has gotten so frustrated with the whole situation that he now refuses to shop the show around to Showcase or HBO, it seems like it’s dead forever. While it only lasted 3 seasons, it never got stale, remaining smart and hilarious to the end.
I’ve really got nothing left to add, so I’m gonna end this with some quotes…
“No touching!”
“I’m a monster!”
“her?”
“Steve Holt!”
“ok, who’d like a banger in the mouth?”
“come on!”
“Annyong”
“Excuse me, do these effectively hide my thunder?”
“Oh sure, Lindsay. You’re a much better parent – no borders, no limits, oh go ahead, touch the Cornballer…”
“that’s why you always leave a note.”
“they’re hot cops”
“We’ve made a terrible mistake”
We sure did.
Last 5 songs: “wolf like me” – tv on the radio; “hyper music” – muse; “smiley faces” – gnarls barkley; “memorial” – explosions in the sky; “no backbone” – the lemonheads
shannen - The Cornballer. I forgot about the Cornballer. Excellent idea to add it to the list of quotes.
Something more about the Blue Man Group (more than the pic, I mean) or nearly nudes might have made me fall off my chair or pee a little.
I miss AD.
mark - yeah, I missed a lot of good ones.
“oh tobias, you blowhard.”
“maybe i’ll put it in her brownie”
“i’m an ideas man, Micheal. I think I proved that with ‘!@#$ Mountain'”
“Tobias was a never nude, which is exactly what it sounds like”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s still plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you’ve got a stew going.”
Heather - Agreed. Funniest show ever.
We just bought season three and are so sad there are no more.
Clearly, people are idiots.
dan - I’m excited – my wife bought it for me as a random present, and plan to crack it open this weekend.
Two favourite things: persistence and non-persistence. At the end of each episode, they do the “on the next AD”, where they show something ridiculous that has nothing to do with the next episode, and doesn’t actually happen in the show’s continuity.
On the other extreme, 10 episodes after Tobias’ blue man stuff happens, you see a blue handprint on the cabinet door in the kitchen. It’s not part of that episode, it’s not referred to in the story, it’s just there for my amusement.
Awesome.
mark - “and doesn’t actually happen in the show’s continuity”
sometimes it does. Buster lost his hand in one of those “on the next Arrested Development”s. I think they also reveal that Elaine wasn’t actually pregnant in one of those, too.
oh.. this post contains season 2 spoilers. sorry.
Jason - i was about to add ‘maybe i’ll put it in her brownie’ then saw you already. That line made me laugh harder than i have ever laughed at anything on television, ever. I still hoping that with constant purchase of AD on dvd, it can come back, much like family guy did. SO lets all go out and buy our own copy of all three seasons, no copying of other people’s, cmon it’s the least we can do for AD after all the laughs it provided for us.