TVSquad

Jeepahs, color me surprised. FOX has a commitment to screwing themselves right in the baloon knot. Yeah, cancel the best show on your network. Keep outdated, underperforming shows like The Simpsons and That 70s Show.

A recipe for success? You'd think they learned something from cancelling Family Guy then looking like complete asses when they bring it back due to poor ratings with their other "shows."

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Kitchen Confidential being cancelled I could handle, as the show just isn't working well. Format wise, I would have much prefered to have seen it on HBO, and a drama instead of a comedy.

Though it would be f**king depressing is Arrested Development was cancelled, but I guess that it's hard to justify its future when a rerun of Prison Break pulls in more numbers.

As long as you're talking about Fox and cancellations, do you any idea if Reunion has a chance of a second season?

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This is a sad, sad, sad, sad day. I'm not going to comment on Kitchen; I liked the episodes so far, and it had promise, but I don't have such a passion and connection with the show as I do with AD.

SHAME ON FOX. Sorry for the caps, but it's the best form of written expression, at least in my case. Smart, sophisticated, brilliant comedy gets shelved mid-season. Just awful. What makes it more insulting is that a show like this is canned while utter garbage like "Stacked" and "The War at Home" (which stole the Sunday 8:30 spot) stays on. Disgraceful.

I was starting to believe in sitcom television again. Seinfeld left the airwaves, and it took a few years, but smart shows slowly arrived. "Scrubs." "Curb." Now "My Name Is Earl" and "Everybody Hates Chris" show promise. But AD was the king of them all.

Today is a sad day indeed.

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Ha, I just watched the episode of Family Guy that starts with Peter listing all the shows that would have to get cancelled for their show to come back: That 80s Show, The Lone Gunmen, Wonderfalls, Titus, Skin, Girls Club, Firefly, Harsh Realm...

I wonder if a cable network would rescue Arrested Development. I hate it when networks can't make up their minds about shows--it just makes me want to wait for the DVD on everything.

And hey, maybe this would free up Bradley Cooper to jet back to Alias for a few episodes. I hear Sydney's free.

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Come on folks, we all knew Arrested Development would never last. It's the funniest show on television, but as we all know, Fox doesn't care about quality. It's been a ratings hole since season one, I'm honestly surprised they let it last this long. I really do hope someone else grabs this though, it's a shame to see something so good just disappear.

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The mistake some of you are making is blaming fox for the cancellation. It doesn't take a lot to understand the decisions that a network makes. If a show gets good ratings, it gets to stay on the air. If it gets bad ratings, it gets the axe. There are exceptions, but for the most part, these are the rules. Railing against fox won't change anything. They are doing exactly what they always do, and what every other network does. Sure, I'd love to be watching more Maximum Bob, but the ratings were crap, so ABC cancelled it. Instead, your anger should be focused on the tv viewing public that can't be bothered to find the good shows and support them.

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Unfortunaely, AD, though brilliant, relies on so many call-backs for its humor. If you watch the show religiously, then the steady accretion of jokes is great. However, I have known people with similar senses of humor as me to be unable to get into the show because they didn't start from the beginning. A show like this would do much better on HBO, where On Demand would allow people to catch up. Then again, how much of Arrested Development's humor relies on the fact that things get hilariously censored? In any case, trying to get the public to jump on the AD train now won't do any good.

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Freaking ridiculous. I agree with you, Christina, I want to get Friends to watch it, but they don't understand a lot of the jokes.

Doc, it was getting more viewers and more support in it's Sunday timeslot, but Fox moves it which can be the kiss of the death for many good shows.

They debuted Firefly on Friday night...poor show never had a chance.

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I agree with Doc - dont hate the playah hate the game!

One thing that press release didnt mention that the Hollywood Reporter did mention is that FREDDIE GOT PICKED UP FOR A FULL SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????

So can you imagine that show got picked up and AR and KC didnt? I think that tells you the state of TV - dont hate it, hate Joe Six-Pack!

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Fox did "protect" AD by taking it out of sweeps last year, however the cut from 22 to 13 does not bode well.

This truly is the best comedy on all of TV. But so much is so involved in having watched the show in a linear fashion that it absolutely slaughters newcomers who jsut can't get what "having pop-pop in the attic" means.

Sigh.

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No!

It's not true!

That's impossible!


Sorry. Had to channel Luke for a second. Seriously, though, we are living in a time where network TV is grasping at straws, trying to save its audience from fleeing to cable channels with superior programming - channels like HBO, FX, et al. They need immediate feedback, they want instant gang-buster ratings; they all want a Desperate Housewives. Notice I mentioned DH and not Lost; DH, the O.C., shows like this are perfect, because (generally) they're cheaper to produce than a show like Lost, and they're shallow prime-time soap operas. Gone are the days of Married with Children, where FOX had no other options. They have tons of shows in the pipeline, and if AD doesn't (didn't?) quickly show some good returns, it gets dropped on the side of the road.

Personally, I think a cable network should snap it up, seeing as how the big 3 (4?) cater to the lowest common demominator. Arrested Development deserves better than this.

Kitchen Confidential? What? The only redeeming thing about that show was the lead character's ex-girlfriend, the Asian girl that used to be on 90210. Man, she was smokin' hot.

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Maybe the WB could pick up AD. They let shows like "what i like about you" still run when it scores deadlast in the network ratings. Does "the war at home", "stacked", "american dad", "malcom in the middle" really have better ratings? I rather the show be put in a obscure time slot like "malcom in the middle" then completly cancelled. My friends and I are addicted to this show and have been since the day it first aired! We have slowly introduced friends to it, and if they watch more than two episodes they are hooked. Can't they run a couple more two-hour marathons after sweeps? Someone will hopefully pick up the show...maybe a network will care more about the emmy attention than the ratings.

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Forget writting Fox, write HBO and ask them to pick it up.

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To be honest, I'd rather Arrested Development be dead than on the WB.

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I know the ratings have not been great, but FOX can still burn in hell as far as I'm concerned.

They never really promoted the show. Maybe they figured that every critic out there was doing it for them, so why bother marketing it? And pulling it and swapping it and all that... but I do think it was above the heads of the average viewer. Not that I think I am smart (quite the opposite!), but it was nice to be asked to think for a change.

I hope one of the smaller networks or HBO picks it up, but I don't have high hopes. They'd have to do it fast before the actors and writers make other plans. I see FOX yanking everyone for a while before swinging the final axe, making a network change difficult.

I'm going to go cry now.

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I cannot believe they are goign to slash arrested development and possibly cancel it, FOOLISH. SO many of my freinds and collegues watch Arrested and will be extremely disappointed. Fox better be prepared for the massive decline in ratings for their other programs. Viewers already invested in a show like Arrested and are not going to want to get into a new drama every other week since Fox can't possibly run a show for more than a few seasons...whats the point in watching?

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yea, this is sad stuff, and i like ponies too.

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I dunno about this show...I have not watched it from the beginning....but I have seen all the episodes this year. I don't find it funny at all, and I usually like different shows like this. However, the characters just seem to ridiculous for me to laugh at. This could be because I have not watched from the beginning as many point out....but that is my take.

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The show should have been moved back to Sunday night between Simpsons and Family Guy. Why would you take your most award winning comedy away from your strongest night which airs nothing but quirky, semi-edgy comedy? Make lazy America sit through AD out a few times and you'll start setting a few hooks.
It's been like pulling teeth getting my friends and family to watch it the first time, but everyone I've ever shown it to has loved it. Plus, The War At Home is awful.

My guess is that the amount of money spent to retain such a enormous cast of this calibur has something to do with Fox's decision. There are so many people critical to the tightly woven plotlines of this show that the cost was probably far too high to keep funding without any viewers.

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Indeed Fox has plenty of other underperforming shows that nobody watches. I don't think anyone watches "The War At Home" and if it's as bland and pointless as it looks in ads I can't be suprised. That 70s Show is clearly on its last season now that a good chunk of the cast is gone, they've all grown up (both on the show and quite obviously in reality), and very little of it makes any logical sense with the ways they've tried to keep it going. Stacked looks like a piece of utter crap that I can't believe was ever picked up in the first place and it was given a full run after showing up late last Spring. Quite frankly Fox has very few shows that people bother to watch, but when they do they tend to do very well. Right now The Simpsons, Family Guy, Prison Break, Arrested Development, and House make up a the majority of the network shows that I watch (the only others being Lost, Alias, and CSI). So rather than holding on to crap that probably isn't doing well in the ratings either, they choose to cancel a critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning show and keep cycling in season upon season of forgotten new crap in the hopes of finding a hit. If they cancel AD they're unlikely to replace it with something that does better, but if they hold onto it they'll make the vocal and rabid fanbase quite happy as well as the critics and end up looking classy. In the future when people point to AD as an example of excellent television they'll also be looking well on Fox, rather than lambasting them for canceling yet another excellent show.

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