...."Arrested Development" is trying to reinvent the rules of the half-hour comedy. The show trades the laugh track, multiple cameras and over-lighted stage sets that have characterized sitcoms from "I Love Lucy" to "King of Queens" for the hand-held single camera, natural light, heavily scored soundtrack and voice-over narration of a pseudo-documentary like "The Real World."
....Another striking departure from sitcom tradition is that the characters on "Arrested Development" — almost every last one — are aggressively irredeemable. There's Jeffrey Tambor (of "Larry Sanders" fame) as the family patriarch, a disgraced mogul who undergoes a prison conversion to Orthodox Judaism and begins selling self-help tapes; David Cross (a comedian behind HBO's former cult favorite "Mr. Show") as a psychiatrist-turned-actor whose ambiguous sexuality and refusal ever to be seen nude is ruining his marriage; Portia de Rossi (best known as one of Ally McBeal's beautiful foils) as his wife, a limousine liberal supporter of innumerable dubious causes; and Jessica Walter as the family's ice queen mother, whose neurotic mess of a neighbor just happens to be played by Liza Minnelli.
"I'm not at all worried about likability," Mr. Hurwitz said. "We have a very lovable cast, so I kind of feel like they're in charge of making the characters lovable and we as writers are in charge of making them hateable."
The characters all have deeply layered histories, revealed through incongruous flashbacks or absurd plot twists. Thus the character of Buster (the priceless Tony Hale) is not only a weirdly coddled mama's boy; he also has a background in cartography, a skill that is suddenly called upon when the family finds itself trying to out-motor police boats. Alas, poor Buster thinks the blue on the map is land.
....This year's work may be even more difficult. Creatively, Mr. Hurwitz and his staff must prove the brilliant first season was not a fluke, while at the same time fulfilling a directive from Ms. Berman to make the show, as she recently put it, "more accessible, with more closed-ended stories."
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
The depressing part of this article was the observation that shows like "Andy Richter Controls The Universe" and "Undeclared" got much higher ratings than AD, and got canned anyways. The only hope is that right now, aside from reality bumf, there's nothing else on.
2 - Eric Olsen
Yes, with all of the acclaim and award nominations, Fox looks like it's willing to make a stand on this - at least for a while.
3 - Kevin
A.D. likely got renewed because Fox has little else in the way of sitcoms on the sked, and nothing else in development. I doubt the critics' praise had anything to do with it. Gail Berman is just a lowly network exec, which means she can shovel it with the best of them.
4 - Eric Olsen
Really notable critical praise, especially in conjunction with lots of awards CAN make a difference, and I think this time did. It gives the network cover for hanging on longer.
5 - Pappy
I loved "The Jury" and it failed to get an audience due to being on the wrong network, let alone the wrong timeslot.
I take pleasure in seeing a show "Critics" enjoy utterly fail with audiences, i.e. Arrested Development. I find it amusing that comedy shows on broadcast (not cable) TV that do not have "laugh tracks" don't do too well, except for, to some extent, "Malcolm in the Middle." I know FOX never shows comedies/sitcoms that have laugh tracks, but apparently audiences who try tuning into A.D. don't laugh.
Perhaps it's better suited for HBO or Showtime.
6 - Bob A. Booey
The Jury was a horrible, boring show that no one watched and for good reason.
Arrested Development is one of the best comedies to ever make it to broadcast TV. It deserves its critical accolades and more, so taking delight in its failure is stupid when most of what passes for comedy on TV is so horrible (think the block of "average Joe with a hot wife" comedies on CBS/"Life With Jim" type shows or anything new that NBC has tried to slot on Thursday the past few years). Other than Scrubs and Arrested Development (shows as good as any on television), there is little intelligence to be found in network TV comedy. Undeclared was a good show (not quite Freaks and Geeks good, but still very good) and Andy Richter Controls the Universe was fairly decent as well, but Arrested Development is the far edgier, more interesting show.
Speaking of Andy Richter, it's really sad to see him in that horrible Quintuplets show that's a resurrection of the Married With Children/Unhappily Ever After genre. He's far too smart a guy to be acting out such low-brow material. Look, we've got a hot chick as one of the daughters just like that horrible 8 Simple Rules show! I guess Andy had to go for a safer bet and sell out a little bit since his last projects have bombed, but it just isn't a good show. Method and Red, however, is surprisingly good if you can get past the "smoke em and toke em" rap star image that's spoofed in the show. In some ways, it has a similar feel to Bernie Mac's consistently excellent show and gives Fox two strong black comedies with crossover appeal and has an excellent cast with good writing.
I could count the number of quality shows on network TV on my fingers (if not one hand), and even of those I can only think of a couple I regularly tape and try my best to watch. Summer's a whole different thing because your standards for viewing are lower and something like "Last Comic Standing" becomes palatable if there's not a game on.
That is all.
7 - Tom Johnson
Pappy, you're neglecting the success of Scrubs, which is sans laugh-track, as is the Simpsons and, as you mention, Malcom In The Middle. If shows don't do well without a laughtrack, it's because the general public is too stupid to know actual humor anymore - they've been so bombarded by whatever the exact opposite of humor would be for so long that they don't even know how to react to genuine humor.
I have no doubt that Arrested Dev is hands-down the best show on TV right now. Nothing continues to surprise and entertain the way this show does week after week. I can't imagine how they can keep this up, but everytime I think they writers have finally peaked they find some way to yet again surprise me. This is some of the most witty, intelligent writing I've ever seen on network TV, and if you can't find humor or entertainment in it then I'm very sad for you.
8 - Jim Carruthers
There are so few comedies on teevee, that the idea of us getting the ha-ha from the reality show "I'm My Own Grandpa" is just sickening.