The Final Countdown

Fox has done it. They've cancelled Arrested Development. I guess that the awful American Dad or whacking the dead equine that is The Simpsons was more important. I suppose HBO could pick up the show, but that didn't work for Firefly, either.

It did work for Family Guy, which got cancelled, picked up by another network, and sold shitloads of DVDs, but that's kind of a special case. Airing nightly on Adult Swim helped that out a lot—I'm trying to think of an equivalent network that might air Arrested Development in a block to boost ratings. All I can think of is Comedy Central, but they've not got a good track record on shows, either. They got rid of Mystery Science Theater 3000, after all. (Which did get picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel, who promptly told them to "cut out all the talking," proving that there is no limit to people who don't get the joke.)

Sooner or later I guess I should just accept that crap wins out in the end. For every Perdido Street Station, there are a thousand Da Vinci Codes.

Maybe if they'd had Paris Hilton visit the Bluth family, that might have grabbed viewers. Or if they'd dared people to eat cockroaches or something. You know, more bread and circus-y things.