You know, I don't even watch TV, and I know this is a bad idea.

Just saw a preview on Fox for this Monday, two hours of fucking Prison Break.

Can you taste the sad?

Tastes a lot like happy.

Is there a Fox e-mail address that everyone can repeatedly flood with complaints?

Even if it doesn't make any difference, it'll piss them off a bit.

We can trash War At Home at the same time.

rapaport must have some compromising pics of the ceo of fox television.

Gosh darn it.

With the success of Prison Break, which is a good show, Fox was looking to clear some space on the upcoming schedule. I think there was an article in a recent Entertainment Weekly about the delima Fox was in given that Prison Break was a suprise hit for them and they didn't have a place for it on their future schedule.

I'm bummed about AD and also hope it ends up at HBO where it belonged in the first place.

this is terrible news.

yeah bad times

See this is the thing...it won't. They know the letters are coming.




And they're well-aware of how horrible the majority of people think that show is.

Not to pick on you personally, alongdrive...I just picked your post at random.

I said this in the other thread, but newsflash, you guys - NOBODY WATCHES ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. A network can't survive by airing shows NOBODY WATCHES. I don't see how most of don't seem to get this. I know yer not stupid.

They've given this thing over 2 full seasons to catch on, in a variety of circumstances. Guess what? In ALL of them, ratings-wise, it FAILED.

Following "The Simpsons"? It lost a lot of the audience that was there before.

On Monday nites, paired with a show ( "Kitchen Confidential" ) that FOX picked to air mainly because they thought it was compatible with "AD"? It got HORRID ratings - overall, AND in the "younger" demographics. One of its competitors - "King Of Queens", a show that for all intents & purposes should be on its last legs because it's been on for 147 seasons, gets roughly 2-3 times the numbers "AD" gets.

Hell, they even put it on after "American Idol" there for awhile...& it retained about 50% of the "AI" audience, if I recall correctly. That's not just a bad number - it's downright embarrasing. Networks generally hate it if a show retains less than 75-80% of its lead-in's audience.

So feel free to lament the shows upcoming passing. I'm right there with you. But I don't blame FOX one bit. And neither should you.

I can't really disagree with your opinion. I think the main issue is that it's a serial, which is difficult to get into. I have a friend who doesn't think the show is funny at all and doesn't watch it. This is mainly because he tried to start watching mid-way through Season 2. But I know this guy and if I set him down with all of Season 1 to watch from beginning to end, I know he would find it hilarious.

The thing is, it's not really even my opinion - it's the way things work. A network chock-full of great, unwatched shows would be fantastic ( & the Trio channel was kinda like that, especially when they did their "Brilliant But Cancelled" theme weeks ) , but it's also an idea that wouldn't last long because it wouldn't make a friggin' dime.

I have a couple theories on why people never got into "AD" in droves - you touched on a couple of them :

1. The "serial" concept. I think you're right - since it's an ongoing story, people feel like it's pointless if they didn't start from the beginning. And if you tune in say, halfway thru the season it can just be confusing.

2. The majority of people don't like humor that's even remotely more than one-dimensional. As George Costanza once said of Kenny Banya "I like stuff you don't have to think about".

3. This is my hunch - which admittedly I have no way of proving...People were somewhat turned off my hearing how fantastic this show they weren't watching is. I couldn't tell you how many times I saw articles in the vein of "WHY AREN'T YOU WATCHING THIS SHOW?" . After while, things like that just start to seem like "WHAT ARE YOU, FUCKING STUPID OR SOMETHING?" lol. And people don't like to be called stupid.

This is true. It's the heart of the backlash, the essence of what happens with 'it' bands. "Have you heard The Wrens/Arcade Fire/Next week's band?" WHY NOT?!! etc etc. Obviously sometimes people just don't like the type of humour or music, but you're right that after hearing how great something is, it can really turn people off.

- David Cross

i was actually thinking it was the other way around.

Maybe I'm a bit biased being a fan of both him and the show, but right on!

as i pointed out earlier in this thread, the short sighted nature of TV producers makes them pull plugs on things that aren't instant hits. almost all of the most popular shows of all time were not instant hits.

Cheers and Seinfeld took a few years to catch on. And in fox's own history 90210 was on for like three years before anyone cared.

but this show has a small but completley devoted audiance, which i can only imagine will grow with each new class of college kids.

i think it is really stupid buisness to give up on this show, and i dont' even like it.

BTW - there's this chick over at eonline who's always been a big fan of the show. She emailed Bateman, & here's his reply :

"We're not getting a full season. It will be 13 only ... Everyone is pretty upbeat about it, actually. The last thing we wanted to happen was to overstay our welcome and tarnish the experience and prestige of the show.

It was a great run and it's great that the network didn't cancel us outright, and they're letting us do 5 more where we can wrap up a lot of story arcs."

Jason also told me via batphone that though nothing is official, the "writing is pretty much on the wall," and it would "be a complete shock if it was picked up for another year." But, also, "it was a shock that we got any more episodes than the pilot. It's been great for all of us, and we're really fortunate for the two and a half years we've had."

THAT'S LOSER TALK

Yeah, I've never been a big fan of the 'better to burn out than fade away' talk.

Is The War at Home getting better ratings than AD used to get on Sundays?