Let's pull together for TBA!

If you don't know what the title of thie blog is in reference too than you have not been watching your Arrested Development! Well tonight February 10th, 2006 is the season, and possibly, the series finale of this great show! You see the Fox Network, which has given us such quality programming as Skating With Celebrities, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, etc., has more or less decided it will not be picking up AD for another season. A travesty in itself, but that is not the main reason I am p.o.ed! Allow me to elaborate:

You see Fox has not even given AD a chance to survive in the Newtwork jungle. As you may have already heard from my good chum Bill, anyone who watches several episodes of this show, will have a love affair with it as if it were an ice cream sandwich! But it's hard to see several episodes when you have know idea when the EFF it's on!! You see AD originally aired on a Sunday, Fox's primetime jewel. Sunday is the day that has been carried by The Simpsons' for over a decade. This was a good idea, or was it. You see with nothing else of note being after The Simpsons, there was nothing to keep your average viewer glued to the idiot box! You see Fox was trying to make there Sunday like NBC's Must See TV Thursday a day where NBC had Friends at 8pm and Seinfeld at 9pm, with the ever popular ER at 10pm. The rationale here is that TV viewers are so simple minded that they wouldn't change the channel at 8:30 or 9:30, but would just stare at the tube for another half hour watching whatever drivel they chose to put on the air. Sadly, this was true the 8 and 9:30 slots were also sucesses. What a country! Anyways, back to FOX. You see their Sundays have been an utter mess ever since X-Files left the coveted Sunday lineup. Shows have come and gone since, with The Simpsons being the one constant. One of the shows is of course AD. Now this brilliant piece of television was put on at 9:30 right before, are you ready?, drum roll please.........the FOX News at 10. Not exactly a banana grabber, eh? Okay that's FOX's strike one!

Now towards the end of season one, FOX started to air some episodes sporadically, slowly foreshadowing it's eventual move from Sundays. Now the last episode of season one aired on June 6, 2004, only a little over a month after the previous episode (4/25/04). Now that's a good build-up to a season finale, if in fact their had been build-up of any sort. You see this episode, I did not see until I bought the DVDs. Now FOX does a great job of annoyingly promoting all their other shows. You know when your watching a football game and they throw that huge promo on the screen for Skating with Celebrities, a show that they probably just had an ad for to begin with. But where was this overkill promo for Arrested Development? FOX had pretty much decided to cut its losses, so to speak and it appeared that AD was in danger of going the way of the dodo. But alas, it would return for a second season.

SEASON TWO:
Season two came back on Sundays and stayed there for the whole season. And although season two had four fewer episodes than season one, it stayed in the same time slot and they even accounted for a three week long hiatus by airing two, that's right TWO new episodes on one crazy night. But of course season two ended under the same threat of cancellation as season one did and once again it would be up to the AD faithful to Save our Bluths. And the Bluthophiles came out in numbers and season three would be on the way! HAZAH!

Now it is important for me to mention here, that FOX did make a smart move in trying to help the show. During the summer they aired the previous season's episodes in a two-hour block on Friday nights. This was a great way to give the show some much needed exposure. FOX actually shows brief signs of intelligent life. Okay, now on to season three.

SEASON THREE:
Season three is where FOX really drops the cornball. You see they decided to move it off of Sundays and on to Mondays. STRIKE TWO!!! Mondays???!!! Now the Bluths would be pitted against King of Queens a show with a steady and loyal following which includes yours truly. While they throw shows like American Dad (about one-third as funny as Family Guy), The War at Home (which had its moments, but Michael Rappaport can't carry a show), into the Sunday night lineup. Neither of these shows is even fit to carry the cut-off shorts of our favorite never-nude. Which brings us to today, when I find out that tonight is the season/series finale. There were no ads, no warnings, no hints, clues, etc. letting me know this was happening. I only found out through the internet that tonight would be a two-hour season finale. STRIKE THREE FOX!! And for those of you who aren't aware of what this two-hour episode is up against, tonight is the opening cermonies for the Twentieth Winter Olympiad in Turin, Italy. Now I personally could care less about the Olympics, except for curling, a real man's sport, since I plan on going out and getting Billy drunk so he can forget that he is now officially the big 3-0. Happy Birthday Bill!! But had I not checked the web I would not of even have thought to DVR anything, I mean it's Friday after all. I would have missed out on 120 minutes of cornholing madness! I mean where does FOX get off burying a two-hour season finale against the Olympic opening ceremony!! So to this I say let's go ABC and pick up Arrested Development! For the rest of you, set your VCRs, your DVRs, your TiVos for what could be the last two hours of AD on FOX!!! And FOX, well you can go eff yourself!! Save our Bluths!!!

Stay Bitter, Planet Earth!