George Bush Doesn't Care About Black Puppets

Just to show how evil Fox is, this past Friday the network passed off the four remaining episodes of Arrested Development against one of the biggest ratings drawl, the Olympics Opening Ceremonies to very little fanfare or promotion. And all of this was after already moving the show to Mondays before quickly pulling it off the air so they could air repeats of Prison Break. Only to bring it back shortly after sweeps running back to back episodes, and really the “next time of Arrested Development” just isn’t as funny when there is a new episode promptly afterwards, before pulling it again so people could watch Todd Bridges fall on his butt.

But really Fox shouldn’t receive as much blame as it has gotten. Yeah, they should receive plenty of blame for pulling Reunion, Wonderfalls, Keen Eddie, and Firefly too soon, but they did give Arrested Development three season. The real blame lies in the people who would rather watch has-beens trying to skate, dudes singing karaoke, dudes pretending to be millionaires, or dudes pretending to be getting married more than a brilliantly written show. Or blame the awards show that actually said that Desperate Housewives was funnier than Arrested Development.

Even though this season of Arrested Development was a creative drop off this year from previous seasons, which could have been attributed to all the shuffling and episode cuts, but it was still funnier than anything on television not named My Name Is Earl despite what a bunch of foreign journalist try to tell you. The Bluths were still trying to keep their patriarch from going to jail even though it was pretty obvious that George Sr. was guilty and more the family, well Nichael tried to help him out the guiltier George would look. In the end all of the charges were dropped thanks to, of all things, wiretapping. But not that the Bluths could stay out of trouble too long as Lucille got hunted down by the SEC much like they did George Sr. at the very start of the series.

This season saw some brilliant cameos starting with the long arc of Charlize Theron as Nichael’s special girlfriend, not that I figured out how special she was until around the time Nichael did. And her before plastic surgery photo had me on the floor dieing for a while. They kept on coming in the closing episode with Justine Bateman hitting on her real life brother (and if there is anything I’ve learned from Arrested Development is that incest is extremely funny), and Judge Reinhold as himself playing a judge in a new television show with his house band the William Hung Jury. Even Ron Howard himself made an appearance when Maeby pitched her family’s life as a television show which Howard turned down but said it would make for a good movie.

There are way too many jokes to quote so I won’t even try (well aside from this post’s title) but each was well crafted and really rewarded the loyal viewer. Although I will mention, just incase you didn’t realize, the show that George Michael asked Maeby to watch, but was censored by Fox (showing again just how evil they are) was Veronica Mars a show that both of the youngest Bluths will be showing up on soon. Hopefully Arrested Development will get picked up by other network, specifically ABC. With ABC’s alliance with iTunes I wouldn’t be surprise that the show would end up finding a bigger audience online much like the growth of The Office since it’s been offered on the service. One place I don’t want the show ending up on is Showtime, not because I don’t subscribe to the network or would just to see Arrested Development, but I think the show would be much funnier under the guides of censorship. Getting cheap laughs from curse works and nudity stifles creativity. Granted this did lead to a good line when the Home Owners Association (HBO) pulled out of a charity dinner to which Michael retorted, “Well I guess its show time.”

Arrested Development 3.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.