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Stumbling to the end
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From http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15904,00.html:
Quote:
Endangered "Development"?
by Joal Ryan
Feb 10, 2005, 3:05 PM PT
Arrested Development has a batch of Emmys, a devoted following and, now, an early spring vacation.
The award-winning but ratings-challenged Fox comedy series wraps its season a month early, sitting out the May sweeps (as it did last year) and, at the network's behest, producing fewer than the usual 22 episodes.
Bad signs or no, TV's messed-up Bluth clan have not been handed their walking papers. Yet. Fox has three more months to mull the series' fate before the new fall schedule is announced in May.
"We at Fox love Arrested Development and we look forward to having the Bluth family back on Fox in the future--hopefully for many years," Fox Broadcasting entertainment president Gail Berman said in a statement Thursday.
The comedy remains in production with about two more episodes yet to be filmed. There would be even more episodes to shoot, but Fox cut the order, the Hollywood Reporter said Wednesday.
The move came after Fox opted to slide American Dad into Arrested Development's 8:30 p.m., Sunday slot, starting May 1.
Appearing on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live early Thursday, comic David Cross--Arrested's sexually ambiguous Tobias--said that he hoped Fox would come up with something original, if not P.C., to sub for his show, "like, you know, America's Cutest Retards."
American Dad, the new animated comedy from the creator of Family Guy, scored with 15.2 million in a sneak preview following Sunday's Super Bowl.
Arrested Development, which has bounced around in various timeslots on Sunday night, is averaging 6.1 million viewers this season. It's down there with struggling Fox comedies Malcolm in the Middle (6.2 million) and That '70s Show (6.4 million--and already expected back for next season).
Low ratings are part of Arrested Development lore. When it won the Emmy in September for Outstanding Comedy Series, executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's pet project became the least-watched broadcast network show ever to claim that prize--and that was when it was drawing 6.2 million viewers a week.
If the laugh track-free show has struggled to convince groups of greater than six million to tune in en masse, it has found garnering critical praise a breeze. Stated the New York Times last November: "Arrested Development really is very funny."
The show won five Emmys in all last year, and a Golden Globe last month for Jason Bateman, who stars as Michael, the Bluth family's token sane person.
As of Thursday afternoon, the inevitable "Save Arrested Development" petition was online, and going strong with more than 1,700 names attached.
Now if only a few million more viewers would attach themselves to the cause...
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Persuaded, paraded, inebriated, and down
Still aware of everything life carries on without
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