Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=11947

seriously, is it April 1 and no one told me or something?

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Is Fox run by the biggest bunch of idiots in the world, or what?

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

i think i was one of those people who should be watching it but still aren't for confusing reasons.

when i watch it, i feel like i should like it. the plot summaries and events that happen throughout seasons seem hilarious to me, but when i actually sit down to watch it, i feel absolutely nothing.

there's SOMETHING missing from that show...

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

AWWWW................FUCK!

FUCKING FOX!

I've said it many times before and will continue to for many years to come!

This is depressing!

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Nah....there's nothing missing from the show. I think it's just you dubman.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

It's probably that there's no laughtrack so he doesn't know when to laugh. :p

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Scrubs does well without a laughtrack. Arrested is just very fast paced, and the narration is really strange.

btw I dont even watch shows on Fox anymore.. why watch them when they'll get cancelled in a week? It's always the same.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Arrested Development is (was? :() the best comedy on television.

Scrubs a close second.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

That's what you get for being the Best Comedy on TV two years in a row....cancelled by FOX.

i've only discovered this show on DVD recently, and, like other shows cut before their time, ii think it's too smart for the average t.v. viewer who needs a laugh-track to let them know when something's funny.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

:rolleyes:

allright, allright.

i think it's maybe because i could never care about any of them, and that they aren't characters so much as vehicles for written jokes they have no personality outside of.

godd lord you guys.

"aha, he doesnt find it funny, he must need something conventional and boring because this certainly isnt! hi-fives!"

:p

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

I agree with dubman totally.. all the characters have no personalities and are just weird for the sake of being weird. Except for the main character, who is like "whoa.. my whole family is weird all the time!" And the blue man thing kinda got old.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

The only thing missing from that show is an audience.

Great gravy, they've got Jason Bateman, Scott Baio, the Fonze (well, last year), and of course the AMAZINGLY LOVELY Portia di Rossi! ;)

Anyway, not picking on you dubman, just saying that it is a quirky and clever show that typical sitcom watchers aren't likely to get. But it would've helped if Fox gave it any sort of publicity, instead of pre-empting it a million times.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Yeah, I wasn't serious, dub. But I think it's odd that you guys think the characters have no personalities, because they seem pretty well-developed to me. I mean, yes, they're all absurd, but that doesn't mean they're not fleshed out.

I'm wondering if another network won't pick this up if Fox cancels it. You'd think with Ron Howard behind it, and the awards and everything, that it might not go without a fight.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

that's the hope on the AD forums and such... the almightly saving hand of HBO or like USA or something... WHo knows... we can hope

i dunno, i find GOB to be a very complete character. He often kinda makes me sad while I am laughing at him I mean for a comedy, a half-hour network sitcom, they do pretty amazingly well with their characters i think. Judge them against 2 and a half men or Joey or even Everyone Loves Raymond and Scrubs and Friends... every character in a sitcom is always a vehicle for jokes, but at least the AD folks are interesting...

anyway, I'd like to get all polemic and urge everyone to stop watching Fox, but I don't think anyone here has a nielson box anyway so...

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

i don't know if these petitions will help, but they probably won't hurt, either...

http://www.petitiononline.com/GOBLUTH/petition.html

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/718678800


i really like the delicate wording of the first letter!;)

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

i guess all sitcoms suck, come to think of it.

i am bummed a bit that it's getting cancelled though. i may not have gone with it, but it was far better than other fare which is mostly embarassing.

i mean, i could watch a whole season of it, right?

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Nope.. if Fox owns the rights to it, and cancels it, they will never release it to competition. Fox is famous for it, Firefly is a perfect example of a show they cancelled and didnt let anyone else have. The only way for the creators to continue it was in movie form under a different name since they owned the rights to the characters but not the show.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

you couldnt be more wrong about the characters having no personality.

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Gob is my hero. "Beeees?!"

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This is really frustrating. I watch it on DVD and one of the main things I've noticed is that jokes are often set up in one episode and paid off in the next, or two or three episodes later. Each season is like a movie, one big story told in brief parts. That means that by not airing it on a regular basis, casual viewers will miss half the comedy. This show isn't getting the attention it deserves because in a way it's too complex for tv. I really hope somebody at FOX wakes up soon, because this is disgraceful. This show is on the same level as Seinfeld and deserves as much success. It should go off the air when the creators are good and ready, and not a moment sooner.

Also, Arrested Development has some of the most entertaining and complex characters in TV history, and if you think otherwise you are DEFINITELY missing something.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

'no, beads!'

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

quoted for truth

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I agree that this is the best show on tv and the characters are fantastic.

If you think it's bad up there down here the show is shown even more contempt by channel 7. It keeps getting taken off air and when it is on, it's timeslot is around midnight.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

the bigger kick in the face of Arrested Development is that they are replacing it with reruns of Prison Break. that. show. sucks.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

That is one of those programming moves that I can't really understand other than lumping the prison break show into the same audience as that who watch Cops religiously.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

I'm pissed off about this. This is by far the best comedy to come out of the states for years. The characters are so well developed and each have their own idiosyncracies. the storylines are so well connected that almost every throwaway line seems to have deeper meaning later with hilarious consequences.

Of course, it doesnt help when the timeslot they give it (which is decent at the time), gets taken away because of the baseball 3 weeks into the series. rating plummet? you bet. Assholes.

/me does the chicken dance at Fox executives

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

they did this EXACT same thing with Family Guy. constant time-slot swaps, off air for baseball playoffs, and absolutely minimal hyping.

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The kicker there is that "Family Guy" was picked up by Cartoon Network, became a huge hit in their "adult swim" late-night block, and then Fox renewed it, redfaced with embarrassment.

If AD does survve on another network, i doubt Fox will admit their error twice.

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There have been a couple of Fox shows that have jumped network. Family Guy's repeats, as holden pointed out, but I think Grounded for Life jumped to WB 3 episodes into its third season to finish out its production run (season 3: 13 episodes, season 4, 28(!) eps, and season 5, 13 episodes. (I thought Bernie Mac had jumped, but it's still airing new episodes on Fridays at 8. Go figure).

Anyway, there's precedent.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

um... yeah as far as I know though in all those cases there's only been a few shows to actually stay in production with another network (JAG's been mentioned). In the case of Family Guy, cartoon network ran re-runs... What also could happen is that another channel will buy the unaired episodes of a cancelled show and air them (think this happened with Wonderfalls) but in all those cases, the actual show was still gone... i think Fox makes too much money on the DVDs not to release a season 3 of AD so i'm pretty confident we will be able to see the 13 episodes... it just sucks that, pretty much, the show is on death row... all depending on how stingy Fox is with their rights (as mentioned in a previous show... if the creators own the characters they could make a new show with them in it but they'd have to pay fox for the AD name blah blah blah).... so I'm not too hopeful... but at least i get to watch episodes of Prison Break again because i LOVE that show (kidding)

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Are there any cases you all can think of where a show on the cutting block has been saved by the fans? The t.v. reviewers are always publishing these "Save our shows" lists to urge greater viewership, but in this case, it's too late since AD already got the axe. But i'd like to think that occassionally the execs realize the folly of their ways:rolleyes:

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

Star Trek? Seriously though, that was in the mid-60s, and that was to get it a third season. There are several well-documented cases of shows becoming huge hits after slow starts (Cheers, Seinfeld), but TV was just different then.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

this show is too good to just let alone. someone do something with it!

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

AD nearly died after season one, FOX had a website where people could register their support, and a big "tell your friends" campaign. Although they had probably already made the decision to keep it.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

oh i told my friends. first episode i saw was Season Two, Episode One. never missed one since (as well as watching all the back episodes two or more times each)

since the night i first saw it, i've gotten 6 or 7 more people to watch it religiously.

what are the ratings for Prison Break?

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

pasted from: http://www.tvguide.com/News/Entertainment/


Leave it to Arrested Development to mine the tragedy of its imminent death for laughs. Per Variety, series creator Mitch Hurwitz is planning an episode that will poke fun at Fox's decision to reduce the show's episode order from 22 to 13, effectively canceling it. In the episode, titled "S.O.B." for "Save Our Bluths," the Bluth clan considers throwing a fund-raiser to save their construction company from shutting down. In one scene, Jason Bateman's Michael notes, "Our backs are against the wall.... It's just hard for me to accept that it's really come to begging." There's even a conversation about whether the Home Builders Organization — HBO — might be willing to come to their rescue. That idea is quickly nixed though, leading George Sr. to say, "I guess it's Showtime. We'll put on some kind of show at the [fund-raiser]." Meanwhile, after reading this item on TVGuide.com, the American public released the following statement: "Huh? I don't get that last joke. I told you this show was dumb."

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

That is awesome, and if someone doesn't pick them up after that...
Even if FOX won't allow them, I could see another network signing the same cast and writers to a new show that's just barely beyond FOX's legal reach. That would be funny.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

I will miss Job. AD is the best!

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

This will probably not help save the (doomed) show, but lots of people over at the AD forums are planning viewing parties when the show returns to new run episodes in early December. The idea is to make it a big occasion and get some local/regional, and maybe national press. Though on a monday night, you have to compete with Monday Night Football, so it'll probably just be fun for the die-hards.

Re: Arrested Development's Death Rattle
 

ha my friends all get together to watch it so it will be our usual affair.

that TV Guide write-up is awesome.