Arrested Development: The Final Countdown (Watch This Show!)

"I got an idea for what you can do: why don't you f*****' fire your complete marketing team, alright? Get a new one that knows how to market a show that won 12 m**** Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG awards, WGA awards, DGA awards, Producers' Guild's awards, critics' top-ten lists... If you can't market that kind of show and get better ratings, then maybe the problem doesn't lie here. Maybe it lies with marketing. Good night."

It really did feel like a revolution was being televised this year -- fans received the return of Family Guy, digital video recorders made timeslots irrelevant and ABC sold next-day downloads of Lost and Desperate Housewives.

But reality came crashing down a few weeks back when audience-starved Emmy-winner Arrested Development -- otherwise known to some of us as the best sitcom ever -- was unceremoniously yanked from November sweeps and had its season reduced to an unlucky 13 episodes.

The AD writers, whose undying love of meta-humour may be partly responsible for their inability to connect with mainstream viewers, are responding in the upcoming episode "S.O.B." (a shout-out to distraught Arrested Development fansite www.saveourbluths.com).

"Our backs are against the wall. It's just hard for me to accept that it's really come to begging," gripes Jason Bateman's bone-dry Michael Bluth as the family considers a fundraiser to save their construction company, wondering if the Home Builders Organization might help. After a bail-out by, er, HBO is deemed unlikely, Jeffrey Tambor's George Sr. floats another idea/hint for their future: "I guess it's Showtime -- we'll put on some kind of show at the dinner."

Michael doubts even that will work: "Maybe the Bluths just aren't worth saving. Maybe we're just not that likeable. Who'd want to spend a half-hour with us if they didn't have to?"

Though not as pointed, similar digs were made last season when the Bluth Company had a housing order reduced from 22 to 18 units, referencing Fox's four-episode cutback to keep Arrested Development from weighing down May sweeps. But they really nailed their problem during the penultimate second season episode "Spring Breakout," as Bluth niece Maeby was working at the family frozen banana stand.

"I know what the shape of a banana reminds you of, and I know that when I say 'nuts' it makes you giggle, but do you have any other response to 'Here's a banana with nuts?'" she asks a snickering college kid, who then offers up a frat-boy whoop. "Why are we even going after this idiot demographic?"

Of course, AD wasn't going after that idiot demographic. Which is why they're on the chopping block instead of another Fox sitcom, the offensively stupid War At Home. (Typical gag: "There's only one simple rule for dating my teenage daughter -- she sees your penis, I'll cut it off.")

Despite boasting Hollywood power player Ron Howard as executive producer and narrator, AD has been on life-support since the pilot aired in late 2003. Interested in a single-camera mockumentary satirizing Enron-era corporate scandals, Howard hired ex-Golden Girls (don't mock) scribe Mitchell Hurwitz to create a Soap-style serial. His epically unpleasant "riches-to-rags" family was bookended by embezzling patriarch George Bluth Sr. (who also committed "light treason" building mini-palaces for Saddam Hussein) and his passive-aggressive but well-meaning son Michael -- a performance that revealed the one-time Teen Wolf Too star Bateman as one of comedy's great straight men, with his endless supply of genius double takes.

The show's sprawling ensemble proved equally strong -- hook-handed motherboy Buster (Tony Hale), mean-drunk mom Lucille (Jessica Walter), star-crossed teen cousins Maeby and George Michael (Alia Shawkat and Canadian Michael Cera), unsuccessfully slutty dilettante sister Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and her sexually confused husband Tobias Fünke (David Cross), a failed therapist, actor, folk-singer, cross-dressing housekeeper and Blue Man Group wannabe.

Then there's Toronto expat Will Arnett's floor-rollingly funny characterization of eldest Bluth brother Gob, the smarmy, deadpan and very dim illusionist who travels by Segway and uses Europe's "The Final Countdown" to soundtrack his tragic magic acts.

The producers have said Gob (pronounced Job, as in the book of) was the most challenging to cast and that Arnett "nailed the role in a way we hadn't really pictured it" -- but if finding him was a fluke, everything else about AD was meticulously planned, from its pretzel-logic plotting and self-reflective in-jokes to its past-episode flashbacks and phony scenes-from-next-week teasers.

Hurwitz hilariously critiqued corporate corruption, American materialism and the war in Iraq (Gob's "Mission Accomplished" banner, Abu Ghraib gags, George Sr.'s backyard spider-hole). But the political jokes are balanced by sublime silliness and a filthy sense of humour, with goofball sight gags like Buster's hand getting eaten by a "loose seal," Tobias' Blue Man body paint and George Michael's jetpack alongside a jaw-dropping litany of roofie jokes, bleeped curses and naughty puns ("I've got a nice hard cot with his name on it").

A checklist of celebrity guests have gotten in on the fun, with AD writing in self-parodying performances from Carl Weathers and Liza Minnelli, quick-hit cameos by Ben Stiller and Zach Braff, an ongoing arc with Charlize Theron -- as Rita, a "mentally retarded female" and Michael's love interest -- and the pop-cult perfection of bringing in Chachi (Scott Baio as lawyer "Bob Loblaw") to replace Fonzie (the Bluth's former attorney was played by Henry Winkler).

Low ratings have been blamed on changing timeslots, poor promotion and, most of all, the show's much-vaunted intelligence. But with sweet-natured smartcoms such as My Name Is Earl and Scrubs drumming up strong audience numbers, it's likely the bigger stumbling blocks were AD's abrasiveness, hyper-serialized plots and fast-flying jokes that required repeat viewings to catch.

Though music and film balance blockbusters and niche content, network television is free and therefore a necessarily mass-market medium. No matter how rabid, four million viewers -- down from AD's peak of six million in the US and a relative drop in Canadian ratings -- are not enough to keep anything on-air, despite the critical cred, Hollywood stars and Emmy gold the show brings in. Fox was surprisingly supportive, but its advertisers just don't consider AD's savvy audience as worthwhile a demographic as that of Fox's other Newport-set show, The O.C.

Technically, it hasn't been snuffed out yet, though the final episodes aren't on the January schedule and even big holiday DVD sales are unlikely to delay a premature cancellation this time. The show may yet migrate to cable (though Showtime and HBO prefer original programming).

Other options, albeit even less likely, include producers 20th Century Fox and Imagine Television going on their own and selling the show via Video-On-Demand, Internet TV, iTunes and DVD. But such a move would be a huge risk, especially given each episode's $1.5 million price tag.

So as we enter the series' home stretch, all that's left to do is settle in for the final episodes and be thankful for what a fun, sexy time we had.

Fox blows.

I knew it was back because I followed the fan sites.

You can get a copy of it off any of the torrenting sites.

The last few episodes are going to go all out.

Get this, Justine Bateman Jason's brother is going to come in as the long lost Bluth.

And she wants to have "relations" with her brother Michael. Charleze's character is a result of inbreeding, George Michael has been studying up on the cousins marry laws because of Maybe. And now we have the ultimate joke.

But, America still thinks "Dharma and Greg" was the height of sophisticated comedy. I hate them.

Fox is going to replace AD with (get this)

Skating with the Stars!

D list celebs team up with figure skaters and do dancing........ON ICE!.............

This country gets dumber by the second.

More from the article.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AIRS (FOR NOW) MONDAYS, 8PM ON GLOBAL/FOX.

TOO GOOD FOR TV
Despite two of its three seasons being truncated, the Fox network gave Arrested Development a pretty decent run considering the show continuously bled ratings.
But while Fox in particular deserves props for green-lighting so many innovative programs, you can't help but wish they'd stick by them a longer.

Here are some other similarly stellar but even shorter-lived shows that cropped up on network television over the past 10 years.

ANDY RICHTER CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE (2002) Erstwhile Late Night second banana Richter traded Conan's couch for this perfect showcase for his adorably surreal sensibility. The untimely demise of the best US workplace sitcom since Newsradio reduced Richter to the indignities of an Olsen Twins feature and the deservedly nixed Quintuplets. He later self-deprecatingly appeared on Arrested Development as -- you guessed it -- an unemployed actor.

FIREFLY (2002) Shunted off to a Friday slot, aired out of order (if at all) and never given the chance to build a bigger fan base, every episode of Joss Whedon's sci-fi western felt like a mini-movie. The show's cultists bought enough DVDs to justify the feature film Serenity, but it likely wasn't enough to secure a sequel.

FREAKS & GEEKS (1999-2000) This early-'80s-set teen serial was so impeccably acted, directed, written and scored that a marathon DVD session will only make you hate everyone who didn't watch it at the time, possibly including yourself.

THE TICK (2001-2002) Ben Edlund's parodic underground comic-turned-cartoon-turned-live-action comedy found its perfect subpar superhero in former Seinfeld recurring cast-member Patrick "David Puddy" Warburton. Alas, it couldn't find an audience.

GREG THE BUNNY (2002) A behind-the-scenes look at a children's program starring Seth Green, Eugene Levy and Sarah Silverman alongside racially oppressed, foul-mouthed puppets -- but even the creators admit that network meddling led to "one foot in Mr. Belvedere and another in Mr. Show."

MY SO-CALLED LIFE (1994-1995) The angst-ridden antics of Claire Danes' red-haired Angela Chase became so pop-culturally pervasive it's hard to believe the grunge era's anti-90210 only aired 19 episodes. But you can still moon over Jordan Catalano in repeats. JO

You might want to find another way to say that...
As funny as Tobias Fünke’s ongoing battle against his hair plugs may be, it’s David Cross' double entendres that enabled the best-selling author of The Man Inside Me -- "there’s a man inside me and only when he’s finally out, can I walk free of pain" -- to single-handedly trump Saturday Night Live’s old Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoon.

Herewith, Tobias’ most gloriously oblivious quotes:

-- "I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run, if you will, so now I’m afraid I have something of a mess on my hands."

-- "Michael, you really are quite the Cupid, aren’t you? I tell you, you can zing your arrow into my buttocks any time."

-- "If I may, let me take off my assistant’s skirt and put on my Barbra Streisand in The Prince of Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit."

-- "Okay, who’d like a banger in the mouth? Oh, right, I forgot: here in the States, you call it a sausage in the mouth."

-- "I'll be your wingman. Even if it means me taking a chubby, I will suck it up!"

-- "I need to prove to her that I'm not just a man, but a man's man."

-- "Oh. Well, I see you wasted no time filling my seat hole."

-- "Oh, I can just taste those meaty leading-man parts in my mouth."

-- "I'm not in the group yet. No, I'm afraid I just blue myself."

-- "I suppose I'm, uh, buy-curious."

-- "No, no, it's pronounced a-NAL-ra-PIST."

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