"Goodbye, Arrested Development"
FOX, the TV channel as opposed to the animal, you blow balls. You blow them after dipping them into stinky goat cheese. That's how you like them. You goat cheese loving ball lickers. I hate you, FOX.
I admit that I am a bit bitter right now, and probably am exaggerating my feelings, but I think I need to get them out. I watched the series finale of Arrested Development just a few hours ago, and I am still emotional. I nearly want to cry. It is not a sad ending or anything, though the one bit of resolution that I wanted only barely came, if at all.1 My anger is more at the fact that a freaking great show, Fox's only gem as far as I concerned, got axed.
Screw you, FOX.
For those not in the know, Arrested Development is a comedy of a quasi-mockumentary style which follows the plight of a family after the father gets arrested. They are a land development firm, hence the title of the series. It stars Jason Bateman, and has a wonderful cast (including Ron Howard as an excellent narrator and David Cross as the brother-in-law, a fan favorite).
The humor was quirky, surreal, ironic and mixed. There were equal amounts of wordplay, poop jokes, pop-references, and slapstick. It was damn near perfect. I am sure you can go on fan sites and find tons of quotes.2
It was also refreshingly different, which is always a good thing in the very repetitive world of TV. AD was, itself, repetitive, but in an interest way that built up repetitions (again, see footnote #1 to see how this worked for one of my favorite portions of the show).
It also offered my wife and I a chance to relax and bond. It is a great show to watch with a friend because it has (had) so many in jokes that you can share a lot of little laughs at random with each other.
Why was it cancelled? Well, who knows? I suppose it wasn't making as much money as it should have been. Maybe they were trying to repeat Family Guy and build up buzz for the show by taking it off the air, hyping it via DVD sales, and then bringing it back to a great time slot. I CAN HOPE, DAMMIT.
There are tell-tale signs, though, that it was forthcoming. Doing a Google Search for "Arrested Development" largely brings back results linking to FOX's official site (now gone), the IMDB site (note that their is a hidden miracle in the message boards3), and only one or two fan sites, which largely drop coverage in either the middle of the first or second season or are dedicated solely to keeping the show from being cancelled. Without something of a centralized fervor, here, there is no hope of getting more episodes. I will probably start constructing an Arrested Development fan site sometime in the next few months of writing this, but I who knows how this will work out right now.4
Honestly, it is probably best it was only three seasons. A lof the jokes had little elsewhere to go. It was beginning to cycle back around and regurgitate. At the same time, the new stuff was sharper than ever. There was an underlying anger to the show in the third season.
I don't even know what I was going to say with this one, besides "Goodbye, Arrested Development" and then acknowledge that I am going to really miss it. I'll go and buy the DVDs (and you should, too, I'm serious. This is a great series). I love the Bluths.
I hate FOX, though.
(What do you know, apparently you can...bastard FOX)
1: Just in case you are wondering, the plotline I was interested in was the George Michael and Maeby one. Most of the relationships were either cyclical or destructive in the series. GOB might want desperately want Michael's respect one week, but the next he is trying to show Michael who's better the next, which in the next week is used to demonstrate how much he wants Michael's respect, and they get nowhere. In the case of the kids, there is something more like growth, especially in that there is an earnesty in their feelings. Though their relationship sort of spun out in the second season, it became one of the major motivators of the third, this strange little creature to watch and endure. Rather than spoil anything more than this, I will put what I took to happen in SPOILER TEXT below.
SPOILERS (BEGIN)
(Highlight to Read)
I personally do not think that George or Maeby will be together for life or anything, but I based on the cyclical nature of relationships on the show, I think their extreme feelings for each other will lead them to go at it more and more, especially since it turns out they are not actual cousins. I think, in a prolonged sense, that the larger issue will be whether or not Michael and Lindsey have any sort of relationship.
The funny thing is that because they are not actually cousins, then one of the reasons for their marriage to be simply anulled is non-existent. The show flirted around how much "activity" they had been up to, but I am under the impression that it will not take long for them to increase, getting rid of another reason for anullment.
I think the only solution before them, though, is to try and cool it off and then probably get more excited and then possibly go back and forth. They truly love one another and only thing was keeping them apart, which they know to be untrue after all this time. If the show does get picked back up, I hope it is a year or two down the line so that their characters will be old enough to once and for all decide what they want and who.
SPOILERS (END)
2: The best I can do you is show you IMDB's listing of memorable qutoes.
3: The "hidden miracle" is the fact that there is an extremely small amount of flaming on the message boards. IMDB.com's message boards tend to be the home of the most idiotic, and most flaming, conversations known to man. The fact that there is not even one "This is a rip-off of the Matrix" by itself is a miracle (see my "Matrix Corollary to Godwin's Law" on my "on Media" page.
4: So far, it hasn't.
Written by W Doug Bolden
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