It's the final countdown...

*UPDATE*So, this morning I opened my mailbox and got some totally excellent news! It's official...the execs at FOX have pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to actually listen to their viewers! In previous years many other excellent shows on there with less-than-American-Idol-sized ratings (Futurama and Firefly come to mind) have gotten the axe long before their time.

This year, Arrested Development was that show on the chopping block. As with other shows that gain a strong following of rabid fans, when it was announced that our beloved show was "on the bubble," we sprung into action. Petitions were signed, letters were written, ads were taken out in Variety, DVD sets were purchased at an alarming rate, and more (I assume many folks even sent bananas to FOX,) all to show our support for this masterpiece of modern television.

For me, this felt like deja-vu since I had just done the same thing a year or so before when the WB was threatening to pull Angel's feeding tube...and just like with Angel, I paced for months in that metaphorical waiting room, not knowing whether it would be life or death for this show that I'd invested so much of my time and energy into (I mean, as much as I could without actually working on it.) I would scour the trades and internet message boards, for the tiniest scraps of information. The last thing I had to go on was the fact that before the season ended, FOX had cut their episode order down to 18 from a standard 22. Not so much the beacon of hope I'd been searching for.

Then, recently, when AD won the USA Today's annual "Save Our Show" poll, it felt this uphill battle was finally coming to an end but with May 19th (the day when FOX would announce their fall lineup,) still in the future , nothing was set in stone. Then more and more unofficial "reports" started trickling in saying that FOX was in talks with the producers about renewing! Of course me, being the cynic that I am, wasn't jumping up and down over the "news." That is, until this morning when I opened my email and was greeted with this:

Now is the part where you (providing you're still reading at this point) come in. It's up to you to keep this show on the air. If you've never seen it before, watch the reruns this summer. Find the episodes on the internet. Buy the DVDs. Ask me to lend you the DVDs. Whatever...just WATCH! I guarantee this hermanos, you will not be making a huge mistake.

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So, as some of you might know, while I don't watch a lot of TV...I am fiercely loyal to the couple of shows I do watch. Now, the problem here is that all these shows usually end up getting cancelled and I am usually left high and dry (as far as TV is concerned.) I have a couple of theories about why this is (one of them being that the Nielsen Ratings are inversely proportionate to the viewers' IQs. This theory can be supported by the charts found here) Over the past couple of years, I've watched excellent show after excellent show get shitcanned, (Futurama, Angel, Wonderfalls, Freaks & Geeks, and Firefly, to name a few) while Law and Order is in it's fourth or so spinoff and they run American Idol 3 times a week (to the tune of 11+ million viewers an episode.)

This time, the show on the chopping block is my beloved Arrested Development. For those of you that haven't seen this show, I can only describe it as brutally funny. I laugh out loud at least two or three times an episode, and there's very few shows I can say that about. I mean, shit...The Simpsons hasn't made me bust a gut laughing in years...literally. What makes AD so brilliant is that they don't pander to the audience one bit. They assume that the viewers are at least as intelligent as the writers, which makes for the same sort of humor as, say, Futurama, where jokes may actually even go over your head the first time around. The upside to that is that it basically forces you to watch the episode more than once in order to even catch all the jokes, as they come at you non-stop (unlike Friends, for example, where they'll do a setup, then some lame joke, then wait for the laughtrack before setting up some other lame joke.) Each episode of AD is so densely packed with a stellar cast, clever wordplay, callbacks to previous episodes, ridiculous slapstick, and the best guest stars on TV (Ben Stiller, Ione Skye, Carl Weathers, Bob Odenkirk, Dan Castellaneta, and Henry Winkler...to name a few.) I really can't praise this show enough...which gets me back to my point. Fox, in its infinite wisdom (*coughgreedcough*) is currently reviewing its initial decision on whether or not to cancel the show. Apparently, they've already cut this season down to 18 eps. from 22 and the final fate will be decided soon. This is where you come in. I urge everyone who comes across this to not only check out Arrested Development but to sign this pledge to Fox that you will be a regular viewer (it only takes a second and you paranoid types can even send it from a fake email account, so quitcher bitchin you fucking baby.)

Now if you've never seen it before, it's on Sunday nights after the Simpsons (which, due to the sharp decline in both quality and viewership, may be AD's main problem) at 8:30. Since it's a show that builds on previous episodes, I'd also recommend checking out the first season on DVD. Rent it or, better yet, buy it today. Or, if I know you, just ask and I'll lend it to you. Fuck, I'll even buy it for you! I mean, the more DVDs they sell, the better chance the show has. My point is, just watch the damn show, please! You'll really be glad you did...and I'll be even happier since I won't get screwed out of, yet another, brilliant show.