SFist Watches: TV in Anger This Week
When news came Friday that Fox had decided to pull "Arrested Development" from November sweeps and cut the order of the show from 22 to 13 episodes, all-but officially cancelling the series, we were despondent. We were still re-watching last week's one-hour show, catching some of the jokes we missed the first time around, and Mondays were looking a little brighter with "Arrested Development" back on the air.
But here it is, Monday again, and there will be no "Arrested Development" to get us through the day. And that void makes it hard to get excited about anything else the TV might have to offer for the rest of the week.
Image from--seriously, how could anyone not love this show?--The Balboa-Observer Picayune.
Instead, we're opting to turn our despair into anger. Anger tinged with hope. As Tim Goodman mentions, the ax has not fallen yet. (Although we know Fox's arm is getting tired from holding it up for three seasons.) And as any "AD" fan can tell you, the threat of cancellation has happened twice before, and the pissed reactions of fans (and the show's Emmy wins) had a lot to do with Fox offering reprieve. The Save Our Bluths site hasn't updated yet, but they do offer some good tips on how to get the attention of the Fox execs. (Sending them banana baskets being one approach.) Others are declaring November 16th "Save Arrested Development Day", and are asking fans to get those letter of support sent in by Wednesday. Petitions are also springing up (although we all know what they say about the effectiveness of online petitions.) We would also suggest that everyone buy the first two seasons on DVD (huge DVD sales are what got "Family Guy" a second chance), and make sure to watch the show when it returns to the air on December 5th (if everyone with a TV set watched that episode, would Fox really have the nerve to cancel it?)
Part of us is still amazed the show ever made it to season three at all. We want to give TV viewers the benefit of the doubt. After all, Fox has done a piss-poor job of promoting the show, and the move to Monday nights was just plain stupid. Maybe most of America just doesn't KNOW about the show. Also, if a show as convoluted as "Lost" can hold the attention spans of enough Nielsen families to remain in the top ten for its second season, then theories about the dumbing down of America being partially to blame for the failure of a smart sitcom like "Arrested Development" don't hold any water, right?
But then we see the sitcoms that ARE hits, and we begin to doubt it.
We hold out hope that another network will save the show. We think NBC would have nothing to lose snatching it up, since they're in last place anyway, and they've demonstrated that they can market an off-beat comedy well enough to garner it a healthy audience, (we're talking about you, "Earl.") If Fox cancels it, it will be just another example of them putting a unique, smart show on the air, and then not knowing what to do with it, except cancel it, (see: "Firefly," "Wonderfalls," "Andy Richter Controls the Universe," "Get a Life," "Greg the Bunny," and "Undeclared," to name just a few!)
At this point, we wish Fox would stop trying. We're just plain tired of getting our hopes up with them. They can stick to crap like "Stacked" and "Trading Spouses" and leave the smart TV to networks that can handle it (if there are any) or the cable channels (who have proven they can.) We'd also like to make a plea to the Hollywood PTB: If you've got a smart show you'd like to pitch, please--PLEASE--take it to anyone but Fox. If "Arrested Development" has taught us anything, it's that fun and failure both start out the same way...
OK. We don't know if that really applies here, but they're still words to live by.