It's 5:50AM on Superbowl Sunday and I was just about to go to bed.
But first, I had to check Digg - being the lonely nerdboy that I am - to see if there was anything good to read before I doze off.
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Then I saw the most popular story at the moment, titled Jason Bateman Confirms Arrested Development Movie Talks, and my jaw dropped. It hit my belly on the way before finally reaching the floor.
As I've always told people, Arrested Development is my favorite show of all time. Of all time. It has a 9.7 out 10 rating on IMDB.com! I'm not sure how much more I can stress that. If you watch it from the pilot episode all the way through to the end, it's just perfect.
It's the perfect show.
Excellent writing, an amazing cast, blah blah blah (as the character Bob Loblaw would say in his Bob Loblaw Blog). All the cliche things that people thank for when they're on stage accepting an Emmy for Best Comedy Series. Yeah, that's this series. And they also won a Golden Globes, and garnered countless rave reviews by critics. Baby had its bling.
The only area where it didn't succeed - but where it mattered most - is in the ratings department.
Arrested Development never drew the large audience that Cheers, Seinfeld or Friends did in their heyday. It was never a juggernaut in the weekly Nielsen ratings like American Idol gobbling up 30 million pairs of eyes for every episode. Hell, they barely got 5 million viewers a week.
But those 5 million were hardcore fans. I was one of them. I was a cult member of the utmost extreme. We loved the show and we held strong during the rough times: the schedule changes, the cancellation rumors, and worst of all the utter lack of decency for its final episodes.
That is the case with any show struggling with ratings. Especially if it's a show on Fox. If you don't get ratings, you don't get chances.
Here's a list of shows canceled by the douchebags that run Fox:
Futurama
Firefly
Andy Richter Controls the Universe
Sliders
Family Guy (they eventually brought it back)
Married with Children
To be fair, all the networks axe shows the way Fox does. It's just that the shows they cancel simply stand out more. Futurama and Family Guy are extremely popular among my group of friends. And a few of us are diehard Arrested Development fanboys. It's just sad that Fox cancels all the best shows but keeps the ones that feature D-list celebs trying to figure skate like Kristi Yamaguchi or sing like Whitney Houston (although it was funny to see the Carlton guy from Fresh Prince battling for singing supremacy against Xena the Princess Warrior). They keep shows where they test to see if you're smarter than a baby, and where you truthfully answer questions in order to win a quarter million.
Arrested Development was a show that just kept getting better as the seasons progressed. The catch was that it required you to watch it from the beginning in order for you to completely get all the jokes in the later episodes. It wasn't a show that you could just jump into at any time and enjoy (like a current favorite of mine How I Met Your Mother). But if you sit back, relax, and experience the show from the first moment, you'd know what I'm talking about.
This show was pure brilliance. I love smart comedies like The Office (both the US and UK versions), Curb Your Enthusiasm, Scrubs and Extras. But only the most recent winner of the Emmy for Best Comedy Series, 30 Rock, comes close to fulfilling the void that was once covered by my darling Arrested Development. That is a testament to the show, its creator, and the actors.
Okay, it's 6:27AM. I should really get to bed. Let's cross our fingers and hope they turn that gem of a show into a solid movie.
And maybe bring back the show? Okay, now I'm asking for too much.
[Article via Digg]
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