Arrested development, indeed

It's official. The best sitcom on television has been cancelled, and "Family Guy" is still littering the airwaves. The third season of "Arrested Development has been cut short from 22 to 13 episodes by the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox network, and "Yes, Dear" and "According to Jim" are still thriving. Yes, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Kelly Ripa still have sitcoms, but David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor and Will Arnett are about to be out of their jobs. I lament.\nThe Emmy-winning darling that still stands as Fox's best comedy since "Married... With Children" was given the short shrift this month from a board of network execs who wouldn't know a great long-running joke or impressive sight gag if it kicked Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin in the nutsack. While nearly the same number of people watch "Arrested Development" each week as watch "South Park," it's clearly a question of mass, non-cable viewership and advertisement sales over brilliant writing, improvisational quality and award recognition. Therein lies a fundamental problem in today's entertainment landscape.\nThe majority of Americans, are simply not willing to be challenged by entertainment anymore. I realize that I risk sounding like I'm atop a high horse with the following, but I'm more than willing to take that risk, or at least far more willing than most networks are to take a risk on shows like "My Name is Earl" and the stateside incarnation of "The Office" (I commend NBC), which feature smart snappy comedy in lieu mindless dick-fart-sex jokes.\nShows like "Arrested Development" and the ill-fated comedies "Freaks and Geeks" and "Wonderfalls" offered intricate storylines, scattershot sight-gags and hyper-realized characters to audiences already high on the bathtub meth of "Friends" and "The King of Queens," and this country simply wasn't ready for them. It seems that the slim majority of Americans would rather hunker down on the couch, loving Raymond and nursing a Natural Light while being told when to laugh courtesy of a canned laugh-track.\nWe live in a country that, for the most part, doesn't like to think for itself. As hard as that may be to stomach for those of us who prefer to think for ourselves, it's a telltale sign when the national journalistic landscape is shifting from hard news to "news analysis" drivel in the vein of Bill O'Reilly and Tucker Carlson, and when Fox Corp. has decided that we'd rather sit through annoying "Futurama" reruns from three years ago than a new episode of "Arrested Development" because they can sell more Budweiser Select spots in the interim. In terms of keeping "Malcolm in the Middle" and "The War at Home" on the lineup, and at the same time cancelling "Arrested Development," Fox should be more ashamed of itself than they should be for letting "The Simpsons" stagnate for the last five years. \nAt least there are still great dramas on non-pay-cable television, like "Lost" and "The Shield," but for every "Lost" there are ten "Ghost Whisperer"s and five "Numb3rs'." Comedies have suffered a fatal swipe in the early years of the 21st century, and Dave Chappelle succumbing to performance anxiety didn't help matters. At least we still have Larry David moping around over on HBO, making everyone within the parallel universe of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" despise him while his loyal viewers adore him more with each subsequent episode.\nRealistically, I'm just pissed because my favorite comedy on television got canned. I've spent hours upon hours laughing to the point of tears at the Bluth family's trials and tribulations, and it chaps my ass to see "Two and a Half Men" getting better Nielsen ratings than "Seinfeld" once boasted. Maybe the television industry will redeem itself and HBO will pick up "Arrested Development," take out the bleeps, and render it the best sitcom in history by season four, or maybe Michael Bluth, Dr. Tobias Fünke, and Uncle Jack Dorso will fade away gracefully, leaving two-and-a-half seasons of socially conscious hilarity on DVD for future generations of free-thinkers to unearth.