"It jumped out tonight that in fact the entire series suffers from a severe case of arrested development."

Excuse me, my Clever-O-Meter just exploded.

Yes, I grant that was clever. However, I justify that by giving the clever premise a proper development.

Sometimes, trying to go against the grain leaves you with nothing but a contrived bunch of nonsence. First and last gibberish I'll read from you.

You misspelled Gob.

1) You misspelled Gob.
2) It was Tobias in the mole suit.

Definitely the last article of yours that I'm reading. The characters aren't developing? The entire point is that they're in a state of arrested development. Hence the title. Good job missing the entire concept.

You criticize brilliantly written humor with a seemingly superior tone. Here you go:

"It jumped out tonight that in fact the entire series suffers from a severe case of arrested development."

OH REALLY?
Never would have come up with that gem.

And you cite character development in the Simpsons. Are you mad?
Marge is a housewife who is only suited to that, Homer is still a bumbling fool who drinks and has no regard for the feelings of others until it hurts him, Bart is still a little punk, and Lisa is a smart girl with no friends.
The Simpsons has really only developed two things: a huge fan base and its animation style.

On the other hand, Arrested had amazingly complex storylines that wove within each other until the very end.

The jokes are funny because they're brought up again and again. Allusions to real life make us laugh, and the show is just as much a parody as a sitcom.

Not to mention William Hung was hilarious.

I pretty much agree with the other people in saying that you are in fact in idiot for writing such crap. You call this a review of the finale, when you are just bagging on the most meaningless crap. If your a real fan of the show, as I and all of my closest friends are, then maybe, i could see you saying this shit out of angst that tonight was infact the end of the series (at least on fox, im still holding out for showtime, but not holding my breath). Its clear though your not. Your a damn fool, who talks with a seemingly superior voice when all your doing is putting down a show that is briallant, was brilliant, and was ended early not for lack of brillant writting/acting ect. but because the idea of people having to think to get jokes scares the execs at fox(im guessing theyre real target audiance is retards like you). They much rather people sit down, and watch the pretty flashing lights of a satyrical masterpiece like skating with the stars or prison break. Neither of these shows match arresteds pedigry. AD is/were the best show in tv, (history i ask?) and was wronged by fox. Im glad its over, as anyone who not only doesnt announce the airing of the final episodes, but also launches the episodes on the night of the opening ceromony of the olympics? Go to hell fox. And you sir(I use this term loosly), I dont know you, but based on your idiotic ramblings, i can say that your not worthy to pick up mitch hurwitz's (or anyone that has anything to do with arrested development) dog's shit.

While I certainly disagree with Al's take on these last four episodes, I have to admit that four episodes is probably too much Arrested Development in one sitting.

I enjoyed these shows immensely but I was almost worn out of funny by the time the last episode aired. I thought it was wonderful, mind you. However, I probably would have really thought it was better if I had a wee bit of breathing room. It's the same feeling I almost get during NBC's back-to-back Scrubs.

I IMed with my sister during the show (I finally got her onto the show this season) and she said something a little bittersweet:
"I wished I had started watching this show sooner."

Well it sounds like you completely missed the whole point of the 2HR finale. They have known that they were going to be canned early on in the season probably around the 7th episode so these last episodes were used to tie everything in together, that's why they were using the repitition and same jokes from the past...I loved it especially with the new twists such as Lucille being the mastermind and George Sr. was the real patsy. I can't believe you failed to understand this. It's not like these last 4 episodes we written at the onset of the season whereby using the same jokes would get kind of old; they knew they were getting canned so they wanted to tie things up and give little easter eggs to the fans who have been there since the start. Well you sound happy it's over, have fun watching the crap comedy out there such as 2 1/2 men, George Lopez, or whatever other show needs a laugh-track to tell the public what is funny and what's not....

If using the phrase "jumped the shark" is supposed to make us think you know what you're talking about, using it twice in one review must make you a critical genius. So I thank you for sharing that with us.

But I understand your resentment. You're hurt. We all are. And it's horrible that there's only one good comedy left on the air (and nothing on the way, judging from Fox's commercials last night), but lashing out does no one any good, Al.

Were you drunk when you wrote this? It sounds like a college term paper written after a frat party.

I don't understand how you managed to trick anybody into letting you write this tripe for public consumption and where you get off claiming you were a "fan" of a show when you can't even get main characters or major situations right, and I won't respond to you.

Why was this so horribly researched? Couldn't you be bothered to check up on the show you're writing a lengthly piece about?

Anyway, I'm adding another problem: "It started out amusing several seasons ago." There have been 3 seasons, tops. So several for you equals, what, 2?

For a self-described fan of the show, you really don't seem to get it?

The complaints you have of the self-referential and repetitive aspects of the show have been there from the very outset of the series - and remain one of its greatest strengths. Its always how far and where they'll push it that kept me laughing and coming back for more of their sick and twisted genius. I mean if you didn't know that G.O.B. was going to hook up with Anne from the moment she came in third at the Inner Beauty Pageant earlier in the season, you really weren't paying attention (and they even highlighted it for you by pointing out her camel-tow!) Arbitrary indeed?

And as stupid as it was, the Hung Jury had me pissing myself - to follow it up with Bud Cort? Brilliant! And that was the weakest episode tonight.

Best thing I can say about your "review" was at least you watched even if you really didn't get it - sadly it seems most of America did neither.

"Creatively spent?!" That means a hell of a lot coming from the guy who just wrote the following sentence: "In particular, they've absolutely six kinds of worn out the incest theme".

Read that out loud. That's not just a typo, that's incomprehensible by any standard. Here's an idea for you Al - go back to grade school, finish your studies, and then stop writing this nonsense just to piss off Arrested Development fans. They're good people.

Your criticism that a plot point was "arbitrarily dropped in" by the show's writers is probably the most absurd thing I have ever heard come out of a bipedal's mouth. EVERYTHING IN THE SHOW IS ARITRARY. It's fiction, super-genius.

Oh, and by the way, the Judge Reinhold joke was hilarious and everyone knows it.

The comments seem kind of one-sided. To a certain extent it shows that the fans the show does have are pretty hardcore.

I thought that the final four shows were excellent. Obviously the writers had a contingency for the rest of the full season, so I find the idea that they were struggling for jokes for four shows unrealistic. Yes, squeezing a lot into those shows might have cramped their style, but they didn't cancel the show.

Gob in Iraq absolutely cracked me up (as he always does - surely the star of the show?). And Judge and Hung were funny because they were completely unexpected.

I don't care if characters "aren't going anywhere." In fact, I'd rather they stayed right where they are (pre-cancellation, of course.) Situations and circumstances change, the characters remain the same. Like old friends or crazy relatives.

Al, i hope you didnt get paid for that review, but it would make sence. FOX are such assholes. I dont think the 3rd season aired consecutively even once. They always split it up with like 4 hours of that god awful prion break show or something. I guess knowing that they couldnt compete with the olympics, they figured they screw the show just one more time.
anywho, Anne looked hot. And at least we still have Aqua Teen.

Part of me thinks that you wrote this review out of morbid curiosity, just to see what kind of replies you'd see from this "hardcore" fan base that Arrested Development is so famous for.

Are may of the jokes repetetive? Yes. Are many of them stale? Hardly. The chicken dance is a good example. It was funny, and continued to escalate with the various members of the family having their own unique dance. And after the mass chicken dance this season, they stopped it because they knew they had taken it as far as it would go.

Now I'm sure you are going to get plenty of angry comments here that you will use to generalize AD fans as blindly following the show to its grave. What you may overlook is that the vast majority of fan's comments will be like this one, in complete sentences and without using vulgarity to prove our point. Personally I can't think of another show that inspires such a rabid, yet relatively classy, cult following. I think that alone says a lot about the show.

As far as I am concerned, AD still has a lot of milage left in it.

The fact that your review hasn't received any praise should tell you something. The fact that you can't remember what character does what should tell us something. It sounds like you were never a true fan of the show. After looking at your video fan pages, I can see why. AD stands out among all most of those boring and contrived shows you have listed. Bernie Mac...COME ON! Are you serious? Instead of complaining about the last four episodes, give the writers, and actors, and all involved some credit, for keeping such high standards and plot twists knowing full well that they were being hung out to dry in this land of retard-comedy loving fools. The only hope one could have that this is the best hoax that a TV network could pull on a most deserving audience, as they still label it a "season finale" not a "series finale."
BD

I've been a casual watcher of this show over time. It was funny but probably too self-referential. I don't want to have to watch a comedy week-in, week-out to get all the jokes. I don't think that means I'm "stupid." I just don't watch TV that much.

I agree with Al about the "Judge" joke being overdone...and if you're borrowing a William Hung joke from "American Idol," you don't have a lot of room to sneer at the rest of TV. The part in which the guy doesn't realize the woman is a prostitute until too late was funny, but that plot device has been done once or twice before in the history of comedy.

I'm confused Al, did you ever watch the Sho (See how I spelled that, www.sho.com aka Showtime's website), I mean really watch it? Because from what you wrote it seems like you missed a lot. Which is why it's off the air now, but hopfully not for long. I'm amazed that people who can spend years analyzing soap's and know every play of every Monday Night football game can't apply that same attention span to such a great sitcom. I'm also sick of people who think not watching TV that much makes them better than the rest of us who do. COME ON! See that's and inside joke, and if you watch, I mean really watch AD you're laught now. But if you're Al I'm sure you're already watching your TIVO'd Two and a half Men, or King of Queens. Which might be the best GOB (Short for George Oscar Bluth) joke ever. The finale was something for the fans, and we love Mitch for them, there are dozens of us, DOZENS!!!!! OH, one more thing Al, in the Episode that "Jumped the shark", Henery Winkler AKA Barry Zuckercorn AKA the Fonz actually jumped over the Shark that ate the seals fin, marking the funniest part of season two and making fun of the whole "jump the shark" referance to them jumping the shark with the Buster losing his hand gag. Pay attention and eventually you'll get it, Maeby.

OK, Adam. But the fact that they recognized and gave play to the jumping-the-shark theme does not mean that they were not figuratively jumping the shark in the metaphorical context. It was still jumping the shark, and that's just them acknowledging it.

Plus, the Henry Winkler thing was just more piling on with the pointless insider incestuousness of the show.

Again, as I said originally, the show had it's moments. But folks who say that mindless nonsense like the Judge Reinhold/William Hung crap is some kind of comedy genius are just being chauvinistic. And by the time the same joke is repeated a couple dozen times, it's gone from being a motif to mere repetitive foolishness.

Not to pick on Adam, who's friendly in his criticisms, but some of y'all are basking in some TOTALLY unearned smugness here. Why, anyone who doesn't see the comic GENIUS in putting William Hung on their show is an idiot who just doesn't get it, obviously a downmarket King of Queens fan. See, it's a courtroom show and sometimes courtrooms have "hung juries" and his name is Hung. Get it? GENIUS!

You Really Dont Watch This Show do you? You've missed the entire plot and gotten parts completly wrong.

Yeah, I hate shows where the characters don't develop. What was that one show that was not popular or funny at all? The one which didn't last 9 seasons because the characters were very 2-dimensional and didn't evolve and grow into real people?

Oh that's right, it was Seinfield. Yah, that show SUCKED because the characters did not grow over time.

This was my first and last article of yours that I'm reading. The writing style and choice of oh-so-witty phrases makes me think of somebody who is desperately trying to appear hip.

You seem reeeaaally Hung (get it?) up on this Judge Reinhold and William Hung thing. Have you seen most of this series? These last 4 episodes were filmed with the knowledge that they were the end of the series. They were not trying to win back viewers with these episodes, they were not trying to increase their ratings, they were giving serious fans of the show a treat.

You don't come across as someone who's actually watched many episodes. To judge the series on these last 4 episodes which were not aimed at the casual/non fan seems silly.

And superiority comes from being able to spell better than the author. So it is earned.

Still, a bit dangerous to play the smugness card with sentences like "figuratively jumping the shark in a metaphorical context," don't you think?

The mention of 'The Simpsons' is beyond funny. The characters dont develop. They're all static representations.

Anyways, you jumped the shark, in that metaphorical contextuous (rhymes with incestuous!) way so I'm off to make fun of some more King of Queens fans.

Reading that drivel, it is quite clear why you are nothing more than a pseudo-critic on some random blog.

You should work at Burger King. I hear it is a wonderful restaurant.

The voice in my head tells me to never, ever, ever, ever rush to Al Barger's defense.

But he's right.

You know, sometimes a sit-com brimming with cleverness from day one needs to end early so as not to ruin the mystique and water down the series as a whole. Please watch The Drew Carey Show or That '70s Show as examples of great chemistry and memorable one-and-a-half-dimensional characters that overstay their welcome.

And here's something I'll throw out there that may have not been thought of yet: Suppose the show lasts three more years and has no sign of stopping: suppose actors and actresses want to pursue a movie career. Suppose David Cross gets tired of the show, and Portia de Rossi wants to explore her options, or the teenagers are offered their own show on Disney. Now you have to re-write the show and compromise its plot to serve the selfish will of the actors.

Look at Drew Carey. Kate left a void.

Look at That '70s Show. Ashton Kutcher left (obviously) but holy shit Topher Grace, the main character, leaves in the final season? Who wants to watch it at this point (notwithstanding that Donna went from standout redhead to cookie-cutter blonde?)

And rather than bitching about FOX cutting the show or Barger for cutting up the show, you'll be whining about how they stayed on the air too long.

Christ, some people are never happy. Enjoy it while it lasted. Buy it on DVD.

Suss- you've only got one voice in your head? It's underpopulated, I say.

Al's Mea Culpa: I made one actual factual error in my memory of the Japanese investor story, now corrected. It was Tobias rather than Gob stomping the model houses like Godzilla. Same point, but still my bad.

I also managed to trip over spelling a couple of tricky names. I looked one of them up while I was writing, but still ended up with an extra "e" in Maeby. Sorry.

Do you even watch the show? The whole basis is set-up around a documentary theme. The fact that some of the jokes and events on the show go on and on from episode to episode gives it that "real" feeling. If it just dropped jokes and events every episode it would be just another "Raymond". Arrested Development is the best comedy on TV now, thank god they did not tie it all up, and left room for it to continue if Showtime and Mitch decide to go all the way.

Mr T (comment 25)- Your silly spitefulness doesn't impress me, but you do have a legitimate point about Seinfeld lacking character development but still being an outstanding and successful show. In that regard, it is the exception that proves the rule.

Thing is, Seinfeld was doing other things very well besides the character development that they avoided. It was largely a comedy of manners, with continuing sharp dissection of social manners and such.

Seinfeld was just a much better show. It had a lot more going on to fill the character development void than William Hung or the same couple of jokes played out endlessly.

Wow. I like how many of your criticisms completely missed the point. I like how most of the things you said were unfunny were just jokes that flew over your head.

I like the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about.

No, seriously, I like it. The comedy of your post is one of the funniest things I've read today. If only it were intentional.

what's " Arrested Development"?

I would like to start by saying I agree with basically everyone who commented on this article. It is absolute drivel, and I feel less intelligent for reading it.

This basically sums up why most of America did not watch this show: they don't get it. Let me attempt to explain some of this. Arrested Development does repeat a lot of the same jokes, but *that's the point*. It adds a level of satisfaction for someone who has watched from the beginning. This is not a creative drought on part of the creators. This is them serving their remaining audience, which consists of loyal viewers. We're the people who laughed at every "COME ON!", who snickered at the name of GOB's yacht, and who actually appreciated the repetition in the final thirty minutes as a CALL-BACK to the pilot episode. As for the mock trial, coma, etc.: Do you think that *anyone* who likes the show is actually convinced that these are plausible scenarios? Do you think we like the characters because they are oh-so developed and relatable? Of course we don't. We love these situations because they are ridiculous and impossible. We love the characters because they have made us laugh non-stop for the past three years. Maybe that's just weird of us; personally, I think that's what TV's all about. Sadly, people like you can't stand to have their brains tested by a comedy, which is why shows like King of Queens run for years and Arrested Development is driven into the ground.

I don't understand the problem here. Why can't America be as committed to its comedies as it is to shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives? Obviously, Mitch Hurwitz overestimated the intelligence of our viewing population when creating this show. All we want are mindless, laugh-tracked, feel-good shows about fat husbands and their pretty wives, and you are doing nothing to improve that image.

So, thanks for your misguided attempt at cleverness and wit. Your gross misinterpretations of Arrested Development, its viewing audience, and television in general were pretty amusing, and your idiocy has made my day that much better. Have fun watching Bernie Mac!

The trouble with writing comedy is that you have to stick your neck out every forty-five seconds and say THIS is what I think is funny. If someone wants to come along and criticize you, chance are you gave them a fart joke or a pun as ammo, or, in the case of the above review, every single "joke."

But really your piece is an object lesson in how hard comedy writing is. You are really sweating to get laughs up there and succeed not a once. Having been so humbled, perhaps you will now cast a kinder glance at the work of those who actually have the gifts you were so completely denied.

What kind of nightmare world do we live in, anyway? A witty television show is brutally mis-marketed and eventually canceled, plunging humanity into abject darkness. How could a just God let this happen? It is to scoff.

hey al, go suck a cock you fucking nut gobbler...AD is the best tv show on and you can now go back and watch your "humor"? of according to jim, bearnie mac, everbody loves raymond, and all the other so called sitcoms.....

Hey Al, maybe Mitch Hurwitz can't hear your lame critiques of his brilliant show over the sound his Emmys are making.

hey al...just busting ya man, i agree with ya the finale was alil over done, but it was a great show nontheless....like you stated it had its moments

I won't even dignify this pitiful "article" with a comment. The Internet grants too much power to people with very little intelligence...

can't comment on AD, but The Simpsons jumped the shark once Homer became an idiot and Conan left. Seinfeld jumped once Elaine became George.

I won't dignify Alfred B's comment with a comment of my own. I sure won't. Nope. I'm saying nothing about it.

I came to the AD party late, but have become somewhat of an addict since first renting the season one DVD last year. Since discovering the show, I have watched each episode on DVD at least 10 times (including the final four already), and I have bought extra copies of the DVD's to give to random people to spread the word about AD. I love the show as much as anybody else.


So don't bring the "Do you actually WATCH the show, do you GET IT? Or do you watch Bernie Mac?" crap with me.


This third season has been downright mediocre. I agree completely with this review. Why am I supposed to find Tobias saying he likes hot sailors funny? Oh, because he's questioning his sexuality. Right. Got anything else? No! Tobias has gone nowhere in three seasons, and it's getting kind of frustrating hearing them rehash the same jokes over and over again. Same with Buster's relationship with Lucille, with Tobias and Lindsay's marriage, with George-Michael and Maeby. These characters are too far within a niche to go anywhere. There are only so many jokes that can come with characters so two-dimensional, and I think the writers have already gone through them all.


I think Hurwitz knows this too. If he didn't, the choice to go to Showtime would have been a no-brainer. It's time to give it a rest. Two and a half seasons was enough.

First of all, would you like some muffins? I'm going to keep it simple. I thought this article was horrible. I completely disagree; these four episodes were great, especially the last two. The difference in quality between season one or two and season three is minuscule. I would say season three had a slow start, but these last couple of episodes have been on par with the top episodes from the past seasons.

You know what? I found this article two-dimensional because all it does is rag on one of the greatest shows ever to grace the TV screen.

Folks, now I've been called names, criticized and knocked around by all kinds of folks on the net, but I've got to say that some of you AD fans have less apparent critical intellectual facilities than a Pretty Ricky fan- and are more passive-aggressive hateful than a Mariah Carey Lamb.

Let's drop back a step on this consideration, then. Let's grant for the sake of argument that I'm a no-good-sumbitch too stupid to live. You found me out.

But that STILL doesn't make AD's finale good art of any kind. No matter how bad I suck, that still doesn't make any case at all for AD.

So, you'll make more ground with me by actually making positive arguments about why you think this show was really good, and explaining where all these great jokes are that I supposedly didn't get, particularly in these final four episodes.

If you in fact come up with a really good twist, that's an argument for your show, and I'll be glad to acknowledge it. Indeed, I readily concede that the show had its moments.

But which ones, exactly?

"Sacred cows make the tastiest burgers.
Get in my belly!"

Genius? I've heard "get in my belly" so many times, it definitely outweighs the repeated (and creatively executed) motifs you complain about. (Also, I added a period in your little cow saying.)

And STOP EATING SO MANY COWS! If you live THAT free, you WILL die!

P.S. This is not a personal attack. Just lookin' out for you.

You've already gotten too much press. Peruse the-op.com or TWOP forums for positives about AD. Its unfortunate that you've already gotten this much readership when you really don't deserve it. Whether someone likes AD or not, your argument is poorly constructed.

Responding to post #48, here's a forum with a bunch of fan favorite lines from the finale.

http://forums.prospero.com/foxarrested/messages/?msg=10464.1

wow... i cant say what has not already been said. al, the show is called arrested development, and you worry that the characters are in a state of arrested development? you call yourself a critic, yet you seem to have a very difficult time criticizing the show. the show is built around recurring themes, variations and callbacks, its an intelligent humor, something that you apparently are not able to grasp. i hope you have another career option al, because this one looks like its going nowhere, fast.
now, the whole idea of how the show ended was brilliant, because if it was indeed the end, it ended off with a solid ending, similar to seinfelds, actually, but if they choose to continue, then they have a whole new begining, the show came full circle, but still left a pretty nice opening. and did you really not think the "my name is judge" jab was clever? or how about the incredibly detailed sets? if you dont find these funny that leads me to believe that you dont know what these mean, and are therefore unqualified to write an article about tv's best show, Arrested Development.

also, i forgot to mention that its pretty rough to tie up all these loose ends when 13 episodes were cut out in the last 2 seasons (4 in s 2 and 9 in s 3)they were basically told that they had to wrap it all up with just 4 episodes to be filmed, its not that easy with such a brilliant, intricate, interwoven plot.

Actually, I've found AD fans to be really good with criticisms of the show - if it's justified. If your article had shown a lot more depth, thought and appreciation of the show and fans in general (regardless of whether you like it or not) then you probably wouldn't be copping all this flack. The fact that you clearly don't seem to have watched many AD episodes at all and just don't GET the intention of so many of the jokes is what makes people not want to listen to anything you have to say.

Yeah, we're a rude bunch. 'Course, last time some insensitive twit said my recently deceased favorite pet turtle was a horrible example of the species--much worse than that cute fat turtle/thin turtle couple who showed *real* character development--I gave him a shiner. Guess I'm just the type who's sensitive when somebody comes along with their nose in the air, a false sense of superiority, and pure glee dripping from every syllable of their hackneyed ramblings about the demise of something they seem to have never understood in the first place.

Seriously, if you don't find humor in the show's situations, absurdist comedy, and frequent call-back jokes, you could have written this article half way into the first season. But no, now that a critical darling with a cult following is likely gone is when you pull out your knives--though I must congratulate you on such a fearless, hipsterish, and even, dare I say it, cliche and one-dimensional, method of "criticism." Now that it's probably over, you can safely bitch about something that everybody else said was genius but that you never really caught on to; you can pull out the "I liked them back when..." card used by music critics when an acclaimed or cultish band they didn't actually like in the first place faces its inevitable backlash; you can be the pundit who proclaims "I'm fair and balanced--vote Republican!" In short, you can disingenuously try to pass yourself off as a fan of the show while saying that the show stunk. It's been done to death, though, so you, sir, you must have huge balls to use it to make those arguments. Shame brains and honesty don't seem to have come with them.

Or... oh, wait! It was all satire! Since you're obviously so brilliant, what with your big words and all, you knew all along how absurd it was to bash a show for becoming cliched and one-dimensional by using the most cliched and one-dimensional method of criticism in existence. I only wish I'd been smart enough to catch on sooner so I wouldn't have had to get so worked up over things. Bravo!

Ok, I've never read your stuff before, but this alone tells me that you're in way over your head. At least on this one. Let me explain the Judge Reinhold-William Hung bit to you buddy. Arrested Development, an intentionally wacky, albeit brilliantly (yes, brilliantly) written show, was portraying a version of the reality courtroom shows like Judge Judy, arguably the DUMBEST television genre this side of Dancing With Celebrities in the Stars on Ice or whatever. Making 'Mock Trial With J. Reinhold' even dumber was the exact thing they had to do to make that storyline fit the tone of the show. And aside from the points you tried to make here when you CLEARLY don't fully get the show, what's dumber than William Hung? Not to mention that having a band also goofs on the talk show format as well. If you were looking for Sir Lawrence Olivier, you went to the wrong place. If you were looking for hilarious satire, not to mention irony.... nevermind, you certainly weren't. You missed all that by a mile.



MORE A.D.

You lobbed that one right over the plate,Al... Home run.

I disagree, basically because I found it funny. That's it. It made me laugh. I'm not going to give a lengthy speech about what is funny and what isn't, because everyone has a different opinion that they are entitled to.

Personally, I loved the finale and how it wrapped everything up with constant call-backs as far back as the pilot episode. Every time someone says "Come on!" or "I've made a huge mistake" I laugh.

I've never seen a comedy that had such brilliant continuity while still making me laugh. Loved it.

Your argument is just plain wrong. I dont know how someone with the ability to write such a long piece can completely miss the point.You shot your wad prematurely with your ridiculous premise, which unfortunately left this mess of a review on your hands.

Do you draw random shows out of a hat and review them? And to think, some poor soul who never watched the show might stumble across your writing.

I would cry, but I can't spare the moisture....

You're not getting paid for this, right?

I think this site should make it clear that such authors are not accomplished journalists.With writing like that, surely not even Mr Barger thinks he has any credibility.

A true fan of the show wouldn't claim to have seen 'most of the episodes'.They would beg, steal or borrow to make sure they saw EVERY episode.They would then watch them again and again.

Commenting on something you seem to know nothing about is pointless. What were you trying to gain by writing this piece.

It has simply shown everyone what an incompetent reviewer you are, and I doubt that many people will ever read your work again.

Damn! I can't believe I missed the season finale. Oh well, maybe I'll catch it on DVD.

The problem is Al, there are no fans of Arrested Development. There are people who OBSESS over it.

If you continue to "talk snack" on us folk, you aren't going to achieve any more respect. If a writer can write a well written article, no typos, no made up words, and no redundant phrases, and then stand by it and not have to defend it, then you might have respect from people who disagree with you.

I've never watched "Will and Grace" - for a reason. However, If I watch the finale, and only because it is the finale, and write an article on it, I have little to no room to judge the entire series by it, much less make up false-plot lines.

Hey ADdicts! Remember that episode when Kitty drove the cabin to Las Vegas to get Lucielle out of the Circus Olay act. That was guud.

narrator: It sure was....

Matthew T's comment...Where's the dignity?

And Arrested Development is too whimsically nuanced for a two-bit online critic to comprehend.

Tell me, if you don't consider Friday's acts of happenstance "art," then what on TV DOES qualify as "art"? Skating With Celebrities, perchance? Or are you just a LOST bandwagon whore?

(And I in no way am I bashing LOST, for I believe that it is a great show; I just think this "critic" jumps on the shows that are "in".)

You guys are freakin' hilarious ... you don't like what Barger says, so you try and undermine his credibility to absolve your own pain.

I'm not certain what the difference between him and a "reputable TV critic" is, if there is such a thing. They all have TVs.

Now, sometimes tv shows flop and don't find a big enough audience to sustain them for reasons not the fault of the creators. They weren't promoted by their networks, couldn't draw the press, or they were just too much for most people to absorb for some reason. From recent years, I personally lament the untimely ends of Titus and Dark Angel.

Consider, however, the possibility that Arrested Development was perhaps just not really quite so good as both ardent fans of the show claimed. I've actually tried to be nice about it, but the ridiculous hatefulness of some of y'all is wearing out my charity.

Now on the other hand, if you want to consider a really good classic sitcom that really amounted to something, and made a mark on the culture, TRY THIS ONE.

I was made to believe there would be grilled cheese sandwiches here.


Mr Barger, I am not dissing what you do.I'm not going to say you are a terrible writer, nor will spout any hatefullness.

What I will say is that your article is ,at best, misguided. It is clear to read in your argument that you never really followed the show very well, but simply hoped onto the bandwagon of kicking a show when it's down.

This will happen alot in the next few weeks.Fans of the show shouldn't let it bother them.To follow this show was a very personal experience.Losing this show feels like losing a close friend.

Before you tell me to get a life, Barger, I would say to you: get a real job. Writing is clearly not your thing

you want us to argue with you over what is funny?

go back to clown college you downer.

It took you that long to say that you don't like Arrested Development because it over uses the same jokes? - You can really recycle an idea yourself eh?


Also,could you please list the shows you think are better than Arrested Development? It would help point out your bad taste in humour.

minus "u"

and you're the woman again tonight. sorry.

"Titus" is the overlooked classic. "Titus" was just ahead of its time. The show whose stature is going to grow with time is "Titus." It will come to be thought of as a tragedy that -- while the cast was all still alive -- they did not make more "Tituses."

It all makes even more sense now. Please feel free to dislike "Arrested Development" all you like.

There's not much original going on in the final four episodes? This isn't a review of "According To Jim" we are discussing.

What TV shows have ever had their characters stumble upon Saddam Hussien look-a-likes living in a model home? Or had an actor inadvertently hire his actual sister's character as a prostitute? Or had a character pretending to be in a coma to woo a nurse? Or had various combinations of brothers, sisters, and cousins become physically interested in each other just because they found out they are not related by blood? Face it - these comedic ideas are not typically going to be found on CBS primetime.

And as for your comment that the last episode, which took place on a yacht as it did in the first episode, proves that the writers had run out of ideas - you couldn't be more wrong. Do you think that after only two-plus seasons of writing a show with this many characters that the only conclusion they could come up with was to steal a premise from the first episode? This is what writers call closure - it's a callback, a neat symmetry, to the start of the series, in case this was indeed the last episode. If this weren't the possible last episode of the series, do you think they still would have ended up the season on the yacht? The writers are far from creatively bankrupt. They're still running jokes faster than you can follow them.

AD is a tricky show. It requires an investment in time (to view each episode) and intelligence. Those that watch the occasional episode cannot appreciate the nuance of the humor and can more easily write it off.

It's fair to say you didn't find it funny. But to say that this show, of all the recycled garbage on TV, has lost it's originality or is somehow ordinary, is completely misguided.

I have to agree with the unfortunate demises of both "Dark Angel" and "Titus" -- their premature dismissals are a blow to quality programming (the former more so than the latter), but "Arrested Development" IS one of the greatest comedies of all time, and it is the premiere sitcom of this millennium.

Did any of you really read this article?? Barger is a FAN OF THE SHOW. IT MAKES HIM LAUGH. He obviously "gets it." He can obviously appreciate the satire, recycled jokes, etc. But only up to a certain point. The recycling of the jokes has gone way too far, and the mock trial and Buster's coma really weren't that funny. And I'M A HUGE FAN OF THE SHOW (read post #44), so I too appreciate the humor and get satisfaction out of recurring jokes. Up to a certain point, that is.

Barger's not the only critic saying what he's saying. Other critics are losing excitement over the recurring jokes, too.

Here's one. Click on the "URL" link under my name on the left. Look at the fourth to last paragraph of that review.

I'm not certain what the difference between him and a "reputable TV critic" is,

Since you asked, when reviewing a show, we would get characters names and situations correct the first time through. It shows we actually know something of the show in question.

We also don't think lines like, "the spentness of the premise" or "they've absolutely six kinds of worn out". are particularly clever, regardless of the backwoods-intellectual vernacular the writer is trying to create for his character.

The writer seems to have missed the whole point of the finale. They were obviously giving back to the fans who had been around since the beginning. Also, the whole Judge sequence appears intentionally bad, but the irony was missed.

People are certainly entitled not to like the show, after all, it didn't take with a lot of people, but I must call into question the writer actaully being a fan because it appears he didn't get the show.

I never watched Dark Angel. I will admit that I enjoyed Titus, as I enjoyed Arrested Development.

I really don't see the Simpsons characters as dynamic. Even in that show, it has some things that are referred to from previous episodes. However, I watch the show so infrequently that I can really only think of Homer's catchphrase. I'm sure that anybody else would be more useful than I am at this.

Arrested Development had, in retrospect, a lot of foreshadowing (The stuffed seal, for instance). Maybe it's because I've seen the pilot 2 or 3 times, but I understood that the last episode was a call-back to the pilot. I don't really believe it required much intelligence, though. It just made me want to watch the first episode again. More as a result of nostalgia than a lack of creativity.

The last episodes seemed rushed, I will admit. Maybe it's because they had to go through that whole "tying up the loose ends" thing.

I'm sorry that you were unable to fully appreciate a great show.

alot of talk about it being too repetitive (not being creative enough) but thats arrested development. its the inside jokes that you take pride and happiness in. laughing because you get something others dont because their not a "bluthie" its this kind of thing that puts you at a more personal level with the show.

im satisfied with the ending, it tied up some ends but left it open enough for you to come up with new conclusions.

this show was for die hard fans and why shouldnt the writers and actors have some of thier own personal jokes or cameos or whatever the hell they want in there? it makes for good trivia

You, Sir, Are a mouthful,Although I do agree it's fine not to like a show.This isn't Russia.

It's a pity your article completely missed the point, though. Whilst obviously not to your taste, surely you could see enough in the 1 or 2 episodes you actually watched.

Enough to recognise this as the best sitcom for a generation, and in many peoples opinion the finest Television sitcom of all-time. The 53 episodes quite likely represent the absolute pinnacle of the genre, a template for the perfect sit-com which was just a little ahead of its time.

Mitch and the cast knew the importance of these 4 episodes to the fans. I think they delivered in style.No amount of badly researched and written blogs can change that.

I think this article may prove to be the author's own Shark Jump. I hope that callback isn't too stale for you.

Dude, you're an idiot. The show was amazing, easily the funniest thing on television, and it was just too smart for most people.

I think the show is great, it has a wit that is unique most shows are trite i mean they focus on two things that are considered FCC (sex or farce[not even well done farce]) safe and the other half of the spectrum of TV is realiaty crap which is just not "real" or enertaining.

The article, the writter missed some of the points of the show. And his writting style is just not what i want to read or care to read. But i found the last one to be a good sendoff or a good way to begin life on a new network.

But seriously, there are very few shows on the air that actually care to try to be funny, or on the edge, AD did this by making jokes that most adults could get without being as low key to actually explain it. The greatness of anyshow should be watching it multiple times to understand everything that happened, and having story lines that span and actually refrence back to the story made it just enthralling and addicting to view over and over and over again.

- Mike

Sleepy-full, I'm not sure I'd call the Simpsons characters "dynamic." They're in a basic sense static. They don't even age, let alone change. Marge Simpson is basically the same personality as in 1989 when the show started.

But yet the characters have grown over time. They have become very baroque over time. They've added many layers of nuance, and really exploited the internal dynamics of the characters and relationships. Indeed, they've done that with the whole town. Even the bully has developed a fairly fully formed personality.

You'd better eat those muffins I sent you.

Hello Al.

After reading your article and all of the readers criticisms and critiques I found I needed to go back and reread your article. This is an impressive feat given I struggle to read something even once.

I find it disheartening to hear so many "fans" of the show degrade themselves by attacking you and your intelligence merely because you didn't like the direction the show was going in the end. I feel you are entitled to that opinion and the right to share it as a journalist (despite my disagreement). Many people have already pointed out why they found the plot and rehashed jokes as well as the undeveloping characters appropriate to the aims of the writers, given that the target audience was no longer a larger fanbase but the diehard Bluthie fans they already had. And, given the content of the majority of your feedback alone, I would say that the writers were an immense success.

There are very few shows on television I can watch and truly laugh out loud. An occassional smile or snort is the most I give while an expressionless glazed eyed look overtakes me with the likes of Four Kings and Will and Grace. Not that these shows are horrible but I find it exceptional when a TV show can make me actually laugh like The Office (both BBC and 2nd season of US), Family Guy, or Boondocks. In the case of Family Guy I just can't help laughing at a good fart or off-color joke on occassion. No show, however, has ever managed to keep me consistently laughing minute after minute, episode after episode in the same way as AD.

Even at the onset of the second season when the writers moved to a more slapstick approach to their humor in an attempt to gain more of a followership I was thrown off at first but grew to love those episodes and the character "development" that ensued.

I have yet to meet someone who can go an entire episode without laughing even once. That is something that no other television show I have ever watched has been able to achieve. The last four episodes were not, in my opinion, evidence of the collapse of a dried-up, washed-out comedy but a comedic tour-de-force, taking all of the humor that made AD great and beautifully reintegrating it into the perfect resolution to one of the greatest comedies ever.

[quote]I have yet to meet someone who can go an entire episode without laughing even once. That is something that no other television show I have ever watched has been able to achieve. The last four episodes were not, in my opinion, evidence of the collapse of a dried-up, washed-out comedy but a comedic tour-de-force, taking all of the humor that made AD great and beautifully reintegrating it into the perfect resolution to one of the greatest comedies ever.[quote]


Narrator : And That's how you review a TV show

both "spentness" and "bludgeoningly" are not words. also, adding "ness" to words makes you look stupid.

Mr Barger, you should have taken your own advice and quit when still (a little bit) ahead. Somewhere around paragraph 2 would have been about right. I can't believe this piece ever got published.

This article is WAY funny, y'all.I'm just 6 kinds of impressed.The spentness of my admiration is figuritively growing in the metaphorical context.


See what I did there, everyone who reads this will now believe me to be credible and insightful.

Also, does no-one on the staff here proof read? I find it hard to fathom a piece like this getting published.Reviewing is all about building trust with your readership.I certainly wont be visiting this site again.

How many readers does this column average?

You can tell most of the people giving feedback are AD fans like myself, likely tipped-off to the existence of this article from fansites.

But you're not getting much support from "regular" readers are you? I suppose that's because your column is so poorly-written and sophomoric you don't have regular readers.

Your opinion is valid, and I'd encourage every AD fan that posts here to be civil and demonstrate we are classy people. But ultimately, your writing is pretty bad and doesn't deserve the amount of attention it's getting.

I think the post from "Jill Carroll" went over the heads of some of the brilliant minds so passionate about this show.

I grant that people who love AD are smarter than average. If you're *that* smart, though, why are you so emotionally invested in your own entertainment? Don't you have any more fulfilling ways to occupy your mind?

Virtually everybody in America has television. Since there are more people of average and below-average intelligence than people of above-average intelligence, the medium is going to skew to the majority. The smart people are outnumbered on the broadcast medium.

I wonder if some of these ardent fans truly enjoy the show itself, or enjoy patting themselves on the back for getting all those jokes the masses don't understand.

I enjoy patting myself on the back

The thing about this show was that whatever anyone didn't like about it was why it was funny. Every thing you mentioned hating I now find extremely funny in light of your hating it.

Besides, it was the end of the show, of course they were going to run everything into the ground. Better that than leave a bunch of stuff unanswered.

If I could write like that, I'd have my own Alias-type show.

If you could write like that, you'd be getting cancelled by Fox right about now after having failed to find a viable audience.

I'm having a very, very, very hard time understanding where you could possibly be coming from when you bash AD for a lack of character development, then in the same breath commend shows like The Simpsons, i.e. sitcoms, animated or otherwise. I love the Simpsons, but be realistic. Any depth that is displayed by any character in any episode is confined entirely to that episode. By next week, Homer is still dumb, drunk, and yelling at Bart, who is still getting in trouble at school and getting more attention than Lisa, who's still the intelligent, overlooked child. Marge is still the same, Maggie still doesn't talk, and the other characters fill their small roles, except for the occasional episode of focus, and rarely matter too much again. And this has been going on for 15 years.

Sitcoms, as a rule, don't use a lot of character development. Even the characters on the "gold standard", Seinfeld, had the same issues, the same neuroses, the same relationships with each other over the course of the entire run of the show. Arrested Development shined in its ability to go completely away from the cookie-cutter sitcom situations that shows like "Raymond" and "According to Jim" have lived on. The main stories (trouble with the Feds, Tobias and Lindsey's marriage, George Michael and Maeby's relationship) stayed the same, and kept those of us that loved the show coming back. My advice: Watch the "Save Our Bluths" episode. Mitch Hurwitz and Co. spell it out so well that even the least informed writer with a forum could see perfectly clearly why AD didn't follow the sitcom recipe, it broke the mold.

Hee hee! Did Al just burn himself?!?

I am so happy you are getting killed on your own blog.

You are right about one thing though. - Just because you are an idiot, that doesn't make the AD finale a work of art... True. But your egotistical views are clouding the fact that YOU are NOT the filter that decides what is art. Arrested Development IS the filter that separates us from you - the idiot.

The fact that AD is a supurbly written, peformed and edited by geniuses to the state of perfection, makes it a work of art. And it takes a reasonably similar mind to get it. You do not, therefore, you are an idiot.

You can complain all you want about "lame" jokes playing off of people's names.. Judge and Hung... but that a pure Shakespearian concept for his comedies. He did that stuff all the time. ALL the time. Over and over. Just like AD. The only difference between Will and Mitch... AD uses real people's names.

One more thing... If you have sex with yorself its masterbation, not insest... - (and you ought to know this better than anyone) there is nothing wrong with that.

Why you got to be a playa hater? Don't you know that everyone reading articles about Arrested Development online LOVES Arrested Development?

christ... you people are worse than trekkies. arrested development was good for a couple of mild laughs now and then. it may be "the best sitcom on tv," but that's like saying "the best american idol ever." i found the show to be a bit full of itself, and, after giving it a good 5 or 6 chances to amuse me, gave up on it.
watch some fuckin' pbs. the jack johnson (not the fucking surfer dood) doc is on tonight. educate yourself. christ.
stop attacking al because he hates your stupid show. blogCRITICS. attack his opinion, should you like, but not his masterbation habits.

Al, I think that something bigger was at play here than simply being "creatively spent." This show has been on the chopping block for a long time, and creator Mitch Hurwitz and the show's writers have had to live with the fear that at any moment Fox might pull the plug all together. Season three has suffered the most because of it - it's been far too hectic and crammed full of events to make it work very well. Watching season 1 makes it obvious that this is a staff under a LOT of pressure to make something work for a wider audience, and it just wasn't happening. The best word to describe the last year of AD is simply "desperate." It's really sad, because viewers who did give it a shot since early spring of last year were not treated to the full extent of what this crew is capable of.

In general, however, I have to strongly disagree with you about these four episodes - they were clearly the highlights of the season. Having an "end" of sorts in sight seems to have freed the writers to do take everything up a notch while giving the cluttered nature of the earlier part of this season some room to breathe as things were tied up. Mostly, I think maybe it's just you that was tired of the show, not that the show itself was tired. You're entirely allowed to feel that way, but don't blame the show for that.

With statements like "after giving it a good 5 or 6 chances to amuse me,[I] gave up on it.", what basis do you have for calling it a stupid show (post#99)
Why not just say that the show wasn't for you.You gave it a very brief chance, and it wasn't your thing. Calling the show stupid insults those who actually followed it closely. It also makes you come across as ignorant.
Would I be way off in saying that ZingZing is probably Mr. Barger, leaving one positive remark to fight the flames under an alias.

If not, you 2 definitely have the same witty style.Maybe ZingZang could get a gig on this site. It's an absolute travesty this column has got so many hits. This is really low-end journalism

oh, i'm not al. i wasn't really meaning to call this particular show "stupid" (even if i did), i was trying to point out that it's a fucking tv show, not something important. i was once at a bar and watched two assholes get into a shouting match (seriously) about whether the simpsons or family guy was funnier (seriously). come on. i would dismiss my favorite shows as "just a stupid show." it doesn't make me "ignorant," although there may be a bit of arrogance in it.
pointing out again that i am not al, i don't think it's "low-end journalism," other than the fact that it's about a tv show, and therefore unimportant... al can write and has a nice, conversational style. when he's not talking about a goddamn tv show, i'm sure he can write in a more professional style.
and if 5 or 6 chances isn't enough (it's 3 fucking hours of my life), then what is? i usually only give a show 1 or 2 chances, if i give it any at all. there isn't really a show on tv that i try to watch each week... can't even think of one that i even turn on the tv looking for. or anything i would always leave on. oh! king of the hill. i'd leave that on, if it were on. i'd watch nova. i love lucy. there you go.

I have a tough time coming up with a sitcom finale that was stronger, more amusing and more satifying creatively then "Arrested Development's". "Seinfeld" had its moments but it was too forced. "MASH" and "Cheers" were too senitmental and overblown. Frankly, I still think the "Newhart" finale is the standard bearer, but "Arrested Development" is right there among the best of the best.

I have never found a show more richly satifying to watch - one that puts other shows to shame more consistently - than A.D. It doesn't take a genius to enjoy it, just an attention span and a desire to work a little for bigger payoffs. That's where it lost some people.

Not every joke hit the mark, but there were so many to choose from, it hardly seems worth it to bemoan the one joke that didn't land when there were nine others that did.

I'm glad Al enjoyed the Godzilla vs. Jet Pack Boy scene - truly a hilarious, though admittedly low-brow - moment of comedy. But it was in an episode that's only about five episodes before the one he claims shows that the writers are creatively spent. To me, that doesn't seem like enough time between episodes to make a death bed judgement.

So I tip my glass of Cloud Mir to toast Arrested Development, the show that, in my opinion, never jumped the shark ... y'know, except for when Barry Zuckercorn jumped the shark. Thank you for raising the bar, even if you made everything else on TV look pedestrian in the process.

somebody is a rude gus, thats all.

Its clear that the author just doesn't get the show.

He's one of the main reasons why a show like AD fails, but the overall Network TV crap-fest lives on. He deserves the one-dimensional characters he gets everywhere else on TV (despite what he said about the AD characters).

IMO, the characters on this show, as shallow and flawed and crazy as they are, are probably closer to the real-life than any dramatic series shot in "Orange County". What makes them lovable to me is that they ARE all so flawed.

I also love that the show refused to submit to the standard sitcom formats. There were very few 'heartfelt talks' or 'lessons' or a 'neat bows that wrap up the end of an episode'. And even when there were, they are often twisted into comedic brillaince (George Micheal telling his Dad that he made out with his cousin, as an example).

Which brings me to the 4 episode finale of AD (IMO, the best in TV history). Micheal Cera shined (as he did in throughout the whole series) and showed that he was just one of the many underrated aspects of the show. I've watched it several times now and each viewing has giving me some other little tidbit that I hadn't noticed before, the defining trait of this show, IMO.

I guess what I REALLY don't understand why you'd print an article like this, and then whine about getting attacked personally by the AD fans for it, it seems to me like you're trying to bait us.

What did you expect us to do? Let you bash our favorite show without giving you the bashing you deserve?

Nobody else in America who tuned out AD for the past 3 years is going to read this tripe, because they already chose not to watch the series. So that leaves the hard-core fans like me to read it, and respond to it.

As long as they are people like you calling yourselves "TV critics", I have a feeling I'll see more Reality TV, more standard laugh-track sitcoms, and fewer truly brilliant shows like AD.

At least its nice to know that you're a "Blog critic" and not actually getting paid by someone to write this junk.

Mr Barger, feel free to use any of our feedback on your CV

Shorter last 105 comments:

"Neener neener neener, you don't like our sho-ow"

Wow... this is amazing. Some fairly judicious criticism about a TV show that threw the kitchen sink plus the dishes into their overbaked finale, and suddenly Al Barger is an ignorant half-wit. Well, that's what the inter-nets is for, I guess. That and pr0n.

Good thing you folks have never heard that our Al Barger hunts kittens for sport or the sh*it would really hit the fan.

You, sir, are an idiot. Nothing else really needs to be said.

Wow, I was going to say something critical about your review, but I think everything wrong with your "review" has pretty much been covered 40 different ways 40 different times in all these comments. So I guess I'll just say... hi.

Wow, Mr Barger, I don't know which is more impressive: the amount of heat you have taken for this article, or the fact that you actually take the time to read through and respond to your criticism. Maybe you are or are not a true avid viewer of the show (most of your references are from this last season) but I do think you missed some insight in you overly harsh review of the final four episodes. Yes, the Judge Reinhold/William Hung guest bits were seemingly pointless, but they served two purposes. They mocked how many TV shows used guest stars pointlessly, while doing it themselves to make a last stand to draw new viewers into the series. Your comment in #23 about 'Hung Juries' actually backs up this point. The AD writers did not put that in because it was actually clever, but because a TV Courtroom show with a 'Judge' who thinks it is more like a late-night talkshow, would have a gimmicky band like such. As for your actual criticisms, I agree to a point. The last episodes did seem overdone and forced, but only because they had so much to tie up and not enough time to do it. I disagree with your attacks on the staleness of recurring jokes, however. Early ones such as the peanuts theme would come and go only as long as they were fresh. These last episodes were more of a thank you for the fans who have been there since the beginning (with the exception of the guest stars), because to anyone who hasn't, which may or may not include yourself, it wouldn't be as funny. But maybe your right, and 2 1/2 season will end this sitcom whilest it is still great, and before it has a chance to stagnate as the Simpsons or other shows have.

PS- You would loose a lot of criticism if your writing was more terse.

Heh heh, I was kind of annoyed at the petty/childish criticisms (which seem to mainly stem from a lack of understanding) aimed at AD in this article, then I was glad to see the author being completely shot down in the following comments. Good work guys.

This review was terrible.Had I known the comments would be so entertaining I'de have skipped down to read them immediately.

I started watching this show randomly on and off until I was completely and totally hooked. For awhile I thought television was going to go some place wonderful for the first time since reality tv was created.

Unfortunately the masses (mooo baaaahbaaah) were not ready for it yet. :(

Information is incorrect, quotes are incorrect, and I dont' think I've ever said this before but your opinions and comments on the show are terrible enough to be incorrect. Going agaisnt the crowd was cool if you stuck up for Skating with the Celebrities, but claiming the characters are two-demensional and such without a hint of proof is just bad. Come up with a concrete argument, stick to one side, and try not to quote/spell incorrectly! This is the first article I have read from your site and it is definetly the last. I've never met a person with such odd, bad taste. You wouldn't know good acting if it marched through the doors and gave you headshots and decorative soap.

Wow. Terrible article. You now have somewhat of a mess on your hands Al Barger. I'm sure you were expecting a dry run though you nelly.

Howdy, Chubby. Welcome to the party. I'd say this is a fine mess. Actually, this was a particularly good article. Generally, when a bunch of hateful schmucks come out and start losing their minds talking trash over how something I've written is awful and terrible, that means I've done something right- gotten right to the real issues.

Mecsharpie, for example, exhibits careful dishonesty in his desire to discredit me, claiming that I "misquoted" the show, which I certainly did not. Information in the article is 100% correct.

Hatas, if your best line of attack is that I misremembered which Bluth family member was playing Godzilla in a suit a year ago, then you might as well give it up.

The emperor has no clothes here. The show got a lot more chances than most shows do, and the public rejected it.

Even not liking the end shows though, I felt just a bit bad about them being cancelled- disappointing for the fans and all. I could imagine fans being a little blue, as I was when my beloved Titus got shitcanned. Lashing out like petulant children the way some of y'all have done, however, just makes other folks say "good riddance."

But y'all just keep up with your little temper tantrums here if'n it makes you feel better. Nursie will be around shortly with a nice warm bottle for your nap time, m'kay?

Observer (comment 109): You have some reasonable points there, and perhaps I've been just a little hard on AD one or two places. If folks were bringing their disagreements to me reasonable like you, I might would lighten up a bit.

But still, simply arguing that they KNOW the Judge Reinhold schtick is dumb does not make it smart. It's dumb, and they KNOW it's dumb- so it's still DUMB. To justify it artistically, they'd have to come up with some clever twist. They just didn't.

In my mind, saying that they know it's dumb but they're doing it anyway to make fun of dumbness makes it worse. It adds condescension to the dumbness.

And I especially am unimpressed with AD fans making arguments against the Simpsons. They continue as an example of excellence in broadcasting. They continue to be the gold standard, even if their excellence is not surprising as it was 15 years ago. That you might take their excellence for granted doesn't mean that it's not excellence.

Arrested Development is the most fabulously integrated shows ever. It is all pervasive, i can no longer keep a straight face in public when someone says the word 'her?'. i mean writers that come up with such gems as 'It's like we finish each others..sandwiches?' are deserving of Nobel prizes.

Lets not sit here pretending that this was not one of the best shows every written, acted and directed. The only explanation for it's demise was money. the cost an average of 1.2 million an episode. it drew between 3 and 6 million viewers. in the USA on a major network this is not fiscally viable.

Also anyone who watched the show for more than 3 episodes and did not like it can clearly be defined as those people who make up the numbers of 'dancing with the stars' and 'yes, dear'.

That was Arrested Development.

Signed: Still holding out hope that Showtime will pull through.

"But y'all just keep up with your little temper tantrums here if'n it makes you feel better. Nursie will be around shortly with a nice warm bottle for your nap time, m'kay?"

Good one Al! Maybe if you were writing for Arrested they wouldn;t have been canceled. That "nursie" line? True comic genius! Bravo to you sir! Bravo!

Sorry, but your thinking that The Simpsons is still an example of excellence doesn't mean that it's excellence. It only airs because Fox has no other comedy hits and the prodcuers integrity can be easily bought.

Hello, I'm from Poland and I love this tv serial. I have seen all episodes. Today I saw last one ane I was sad tahat it's over.

Arrested Development is apparently in fact gone for good. It appears that creator Michael Hurwitz more or less agrees with me. "A source close to the negotiations said that creator Mitch Hurwitz had decided after a lengthy period of debating an offer from Showtime that "Arrested Development reached its end, creatively, as a series."

You sir are a mouthful of nonsense.

dude you (and I!!) WERE right after all.

Perhaps Hurwitz read this article and said, damn Al's right. Let's quit while we're ahead.

First of all I love this show, i own every season on dvd, however bashing a critic because of his criticisms isn't going to change his mind. People have different sences of humor. Probably why my father doesn't like The Big Lebowski, which is one of my favorite movies. I prefer having to think to get jokes, maybe even having to watch it more then once to get it all.

Faydead, thank you for the display of civility in your disagreement. Still, I don't see how AD involved any significant amount of thinking to get the jokes, certainly by the end. Do you need a college degree to understand the incest jokes? And if it did take a moment of thought to get it the first time, it surely didn't take much thinking to get the 200th permutation of the same damned joke.

There was a largely unearned air of intellectual superiority to this series, similar to the unearned sense of superiority often displayed by various Bluths. The creators and the characters both come off like they're really impressed with their superiority, but the actual content of the show doesn't nearly justify such a high opinion of themselves - and devolved rapidly in the final third season.

Having William Hung in there was an amusing non sequitur. It wasn't as if it was some big, hyped celebrity guest star. You clearly do not have the taste for random, absurdist humor, so you might as well go watch "The War at Home."

Quietus- You describe the William Hung business as "absurdist humor" as if it were an intellectual thing that I'm simply too dense to understand. It's not. The Marx brothers may have been using what might reasonably be described as absurdist humor to demonstrate the absurdity of war, for example, in Duck Soup.

William Hung and Judge Reinhold, however, were not clever intellectual bits of funny, but just the lamest in pointless, stupid low-grade "celebrity" walk-ons on a half-assed sitcom that had lost any creative spark.

Comment from Robert H. Goretsky I guess when I think back on this show, all I can think of is consistently clever, witty, and hilarious writing throughout its life. Much like Seinfeld, perhaps the final episodes tried to be too much. As a die-hard Seinfeld fan, I can say that I truly enjoyed the final episode, because while it was not one of the greatest episodes in the series, it served as a reward for long-time viewers who would 'get' the reprisal of many of the characters and jokes. Will need to re-watch the final episodes of Arrested Development to see if the same holds true, but I beleive it did. Comment by Robert H. Goretsky of Hoboken, NJ

Mr Goretsky- Arrested Development had its moments, but that third season deteriorated rapidly in retrospect.

Seinfeld, on the other hand, managed to keep pretty consistent writing right till the end. I'm only a middling fan of the show, but I find it highly watchable in re-runs when I'm not hearing about it every damned day.

For not having been a big fan though, I'd have to say that the series finale is probably my favorite episode. I probably didn't recognize half of the re-visited characters, but I was pleased with the ending. Even the public censure of prison would cause personal growth. I'd say that was a really effective creative way of making the last, final statement of their basic "no hugging, no learning" theme.