I'm still sad it's going to be cancelled.

well, we'll still all have the memories of Les Cousins Dangerouses. I like the way the French think.

Yeah, it's pretty bad this season. But you have to love a lawyer named "Bob Loblaw."

It's okay for a show to be a little outageous, and mostly sane. But AD was mostly outageous and a little weird.

The barn burner: David Cross' overall pathetic screen presence and Richie Cunningham's lifeless, incessant narration.

They break the fourth wall a lot too this season, which is a joke I usually don't like outside of Simpsons and Family Guy (and even there, it gets old).

Breaking the fourth wall is a cute trick but it's been done so often it really doesn't suprise or entertain much anymore.

Unless it's really well done, like in Top Secret, where one character says "But that's the sort of scheme that only happens in cheesy B-movies!" and then both characters look nervously into the camera.

The barn burner: David Cross' overall pathetic screen presence and Richie Cunningham's lifeless, incessant narration.

David Cross' character is 1 shown too much and 2 just keeps doing the secretly-gay joke over and over. It gets olllllld.

And Richie Cunningham's narration was always bad, but the more convoluted and back-referencing the plot, the more of it they need, so there's more downtime. To make up for that, they've tried making his narration "funny," but it's not.

That fourth wall thing done often is usually a sign of lazy writing, or a writer who has run out of ideas.

P.S. that word I was feebly trying to type was supposed to be "outrageous."

Not enough Carl Weathers.

I watched a couple of episodes, but the shtick got old fast. I knew the series was doomed -- it's the kind of sitcom critics love but most people hate. Sly, self-referential, in-joke comedy can work, but not over a long period of time. The series can't decide if it's farce, social commentary, or a traditional family sit-com.

Plus, Fawlty Towers is the ne plus ultra of sitcoms -- there will never be a better one, ergo it is pointless to try. (God, who'd have thought the frickin' Limeys would create the funniest sitcom ever?!?)

David Cross did a terrific job with a potentially interesting character: a psychologist with absolutely no self-awareness. I blame the writers for giving him nothing better to work with than an endless string of buttfucking double-entendres.

With a genuine classic series like Seinfeld or The Simpsons, the show gets visibly better the longer it's on the air. AD had a good premise, good writers and an outstanding cast, but it wasn't getting any better and this season has been noticeably worse. I won't miss it all that much.

I think you guys are a bit too harsh on the show, which I still love... but there are some good points to the criticism, too.

As the show has gone on, it's gotten more and more absurd - which can still be funny, but it works better when the situations are at least sort of plausible, or there's only *one* wildly unrealistic element going on at a time, maybe.

I kinda think Arrested Development is more like British shows like The Office or Fawlty Towers, in that it hits a very high mark, but is hard to sustain. Probably 3-4 seasons is about the maximum the show could go without running out of steam, even if the ratings were great (and a lot of you evidently think it's already there.)

Oh well. More time to watch Family Guy.

And Battlestar Galactica. Is it January yet?!?

¿qué?

Wrong. It is the funniest non-animated comedy on t.v. And as for one-note characters, well, it's a comedy! Characters are, by definition, limited.
Now, I be wrong and you're at home thinking, "you know, Charlie Sheen's character really has matured this year" but I doubt it. AD was at least as funny as the first two years of the Simpsons, remember those early shows?
It was fast and witty and, tell me you won't miss it when it's replaced by more "So, You Think You Can Dance!"

Actually, Family Guy (and American Dad) used to be very funny, anti-PC and what I thought was Conservative.

Now both Family Guy and American Dad have taken on some seriously anti-Conservative qualities. I still watch Family Guy and love it, but the mindless, unfunny attempts at bashing conservatives move it from a "must see" to "if I'm home I'll watch it". I put on VH-1 Classics when American Dad comes on.

I agree that in comedies characters should be one-dimensional. Comic characters tend to be exaggerated archetypes. And that's the way it is.

My complaint is that these one-dimensionals just keep repeating their One Big Joke. Again, that's common, but... there really aren't any variations at all on them.

Part of the problem is the far-too-big cast -- is this a comedy sitcom or a double-issue of the X-Men? -- and the overreliance on narration to bring every character in and set up each joke. A lot of jokes don't come about from characters talking to one another, each setting the other up. The jokes are compressed by having Ron Howard do a narrative flash-back (and many of these flashbacks are very repetitive for those of us watching the show) and then having a character deliver the punchline off the flashback.

A conventional sitcom has an A and B storyline, with A the longer one, B more easily set-up and just a bunch of wisecracks. Arrested Development has A, B, C, D, and E storylines in every episode, and they're all very superficially developed; each is actually given less time than the standard sitcom's B storyline.

It just results in what I think they wanted to avoid -- setup, joke, setup, joke, setup joke, setup, joke. Due to the overmany storylines and constant flashbacks, the show feels dense, and yet the actual number of jokes isn't really that high.

The exposition/setup to joke ratio is just not great. A conventional sitcom would have two set-ups, one for the A and the other for the B, and then the jokes would flow from those two set-ups. On Arrested Development, they never stick with one premise for more than thirty seconds, requiring another bit of narrative exposition to set up a different joke.

Everyone loves breaking conventions, but many people often learn that conventions have become conventional for a reason. If the normal sitcom is too formulaic, it at least has the virtue of not requiring a narrator's cliff's notes to set up each joke.

Wow, Ace-- that's pretty good plot analysis. You should try writing a screenplay, maybe you can break into Hollywood.

(Sorry, that was a looow blow ;-).

Cheers,
That Dick at Garfield Ridge

That would be 'Les cousins dangereux'.

"With a genuine classic series like Seinfeld or The Simpsons, the show gets visibly better the longer it's on the air."

Seinfeld maybe. The Simpsons, and I say this as a borderline-obsessive fan of seasons 4 through 8 inclusive, has been almsot unwatchable for the past 5 seasons.

Ace, at first I felt the same way about season 2 of Arrested Development, but re-viewing it on DVD I find it to be at least as good as Season 1. This year has been disappointing, and the political stuff has gotten more and more intrusive (the Humvee jokes last week were particularly wince-making), but it's still the best thing on network TV. Tallest midget.

"American Dad" is now better than Family Guy and The Simpsons - not to say that it's good, just that both FG and the Simpsons are awful. Again, huge fan of Family Guy's first run, but now, no.

Here ... I explain it better in this bleary, mimeographed pamphlet.

Monty:

(God, who'd have thought the frickin' Limeys would create the funniest sitcom ever?!?)

Having watched some of Fawlty Towers, my answer is "Not me."

Although AD is not as great as it was -- and I think the 2nd season may have been better than the first -- it's still funnier than anything else on tv except Scrubs. I still laugh out loud at least once per episode, and Gob is still one of my favorite characters on tv.

I agree that The Simpsons have been hit-or-miss for a while now, and how they ended Futurama was just criminal. (much like how they screwed over fans of Space: Above and Beyond)

Family Guy continues to be great, even if they do bash conservatives. I still love the line when Peter rides into the lawn on the top of a circus elephant, and tells Lois "Hey, look, I'm the symbols of the Republican Party. An elephant and a big fat white guy who's threatened by change!" Great stuff.

And, he, this week's episode with Stephen Hawking and his wife ("They have great make-up sex") was hilarious. {female mechanical voice} "Oh. Stop. Slow. Down. You're. Going. To. Fast. You're. Hurting. Me."

And Dave at Garfield Ridge is right on the money: January can't come soon enough.

I have to agree, from the beginning of season 3 to now, it doesn't seem to be quite as funny as previously, especially season 2. But the Surrogate Dad and Bob Loblaw have helped. Still the best show on TV. Gotta have more Buster. And GOB.

xoxotl - nice reference to "Space: Above & Beyond". I enjoyed that show, even though it's settings seemed awfully jumpy and contrived.

For example, the platoon that the series followed through the "Chig" war were originally trained to fly the zero-gravity equivalent of fighter jets, but as I can recall several changes in their MOS over the run of the series. They were fighter jocks, bomber pilots, tunnel rats in an infantry action, and covert ops troops in a mission behind alien lines. Geez, about the only jobs they didn't have were as recruiters and commissary workers.

Other than that nitpicking, I thought the series still had several good episodes left in it before it was going to "jump the bantha". The storyline with the AI units had potential, and there was never any real explanation of the aborted "first contact" with the "Chigs" that the intel weenies let slip in one episode.

Of course, Kristen Cloake could have recited the "L" section of the San Bernadino business phone listings, and I probably would have at least taped the episode.

You guys have taste up your asses. Anus-taste, yeah, that's it.

American Dad Sucks. Cheapshot after cheapshot. No original or witty writing.

Family Guy has it's best days behind it.

The Simpson's Sucks. I partly agree with Knemon --"[The Simpsons] been almost unwatchable for the past 5 seasons." It has been unwatchable for the last two seasons. Incidentally, in the first couple of seasons, Homer was actually a decent, average dad with a lot of bad luck. Then they turned him into an oaf and an awful parent.

Ace wrote that AD's writers and producers are showing their political bent and while they're "going out, they'll get their "message" out there first."

That's exactly what is happening on The Simpsons. Preachy and a lot of cheapshots aimed at the red states.

Futurama was a better show than all of them. That show should have gone a couple of more seasons. At least we still have King of the Hill.

Bart,

Unfortunately, KotH is on its last season as well. That's been one of my favorite shows; hard to believe it's been on for ten seasons! And while all the shows weren't winners, it had great writing and a gentle sense of humor that really set it apart. (Plus it actually identified with Hank Hill, rather than making fun of him.)

HBO's Carnivale was great, too -- which is of course why HBO canceled it after two seasons. I liked it a lot, but that show was just too weird to survive. I haven't seen any episodes of Rome yet, but I'm hearing good things -- I'll probably pick it up on DVD when it comes out.

Plus it actually identified with Hank Hill, rather than making fun of him.

Exactly. I see you understood my point about the early version of Homer. Some of those earlier episodes of The Simpsons were heartwarming, charming, and damn funny.

I will check out Carnivale, which I had never heard of before. Maybe Netflix has the DVDs.

I disagree a bit. I think this season has been hilarious, but the liberal propaganda is a huge turnoff. The left-leaning slant is what has killed the show's ratings.

Carnivale is the kind of show where you either like it or hate it. It's kind of like an R-rated takeoff on Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Thankyou, um, Bart.
Shall I post as "Monty" now?

*Sigh*

So you're gonna bust my balls for being stupid now? Sheesh. And I thought my ex-wife had that market cornered.

I had a "Bart moment". Just another one of the many voices clamoring in my head.

I never got why it was funny, but then again I don't suffer from ADD which seems to be prerequisite for watching it.

I think you are insane about Season 2. Season 2 was amazing. However, you are right, Season 3 is meh so far. I mean there are still funny parts, but it is getting repetative. They should have done a story arc ala The Office. Two seasons of similarly structured comedy would have been perfect if they could end the story arc then.

Bart: When the Simpsons first hit the TV and Homer wasn't as Homery, everyone ragged on him for being a Fred Flinstone clone. I prefer the change there, honestly, but I'm totally with you on Hank from King of the Hill. It's almost a shock when you see a male character not played off as an ape.

C'mon! Episode Two and Three this season were on fire!

"Incidentally, in the first couple of seasons, Homer was actually a decent, average dad with a lot of bad luck. Then they turned him into an oaf and an awful parent."

See, I l *liked* oafish Homer. The whole aw-shucks Walter Matthau-voice Homer of the first two/three seasons didn't do it for me, as much. There are many classic episodes in those first years but it really took off around 94, 95, that area.

The first few years were Bart- and Homer-centered. Then the rest of the family members ... but when the show got REAL good, IMHO, was when the secondary and tertiary characters, like Moe, Apu, Skinner, even Troy MacLure (poor Phil Hartman! what an awful way to die), took center stage.

"American Dad" has its moments. I'm probably the only person in the world (besides Seth Macfarlane himself) who finds the gay-alcoholic-alien-who-sounds-like-Paul-Lynde character funny ... but find it funny I do.

G.O.B. is indeed the heart and soul of Arrested Development. I predict big things for Will Arnett, with or without a fourth season of the show. And Michael Serra (George Michael) - that kid's goin' places.

Is it safe to assume that most of you folks do not watch the safe, family-friendly crap like "According to My Wife and Rodney"?

AD may have slipped a bit lately, but the format alone is enough to make me watch it. There are only so many comedies that are different: Scrubs, Earl, the Office (NBC, is that really you?), AD, and the animated Fox shows. Everything else allows Freddie Prinze to imitate a 'comic actor', which is just wrong.

I was among most a America that was unaware the show had come back on the air. gotta love creative scheduling. I haven't seen the first episode of this season.

Thumbs down on "Arrested Development" and a huge thumbs down on "Family Guy".

The first (AD) wasn't bad, just not that funny. As others have pointed out, it was a one note johnny for most of the characters. I could see how it was trying to be fresh and edgy but I thought it just failed at it.

FG, on the other hand, just plains sucks. When I heard it was coming back I immediately thought of "Dawn of the Dead" and zombie movies. I thought it was dead and buried and then it appears like a ghoul on my doorstep again. Maybe a silver bullet will do the trick this time.

Please tell your friends and sign the petition below. FOX intentionally mismanaged this brilliant show by failing to show it consistently in a decent timeslot. To arms! By signing the petition we can formulate a list of fans that can be used to try to influence FOX and their advertisers.

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/arresteddev

Why would FOX intentionally torpedo a show?