Bad Development for Arrested Development

Zap2It reports that the last 4 episodes of Arrested Development will be airing in a 2 hour block opposite the opening ceremony of the winter Olympics. The episodes will feature Judge Reinhold & Justine Bateman. This will be the first time the Batemans have acted together since the ill-fated Silver Spoons/Family Ties crossover episode in which Mallory tries to hook up with both Ricky & Alfonso much to Alec P's chagrin.

Meanwhile, according to the official Torino Olympic site the ceremony will feature:

"a choreographed exhibition on skates called Sparks of Passion, in which eight athletes of the ice hockey will race at 50 km an hour inside the Stadio Olimpico. The spectacularity of this exhibition is guaranteed also due to an experimental technology able to generate a red flame 2 metres long"

So basically your viewing options for the night are either the funniest, smartest, most well written show on tv or some hockey guys being propelled around the ice by their own lit farts. (Who knew that Wikipedia was such a vast storehouse of information on lighting farts? Impressive.) Unfortunately people love spectacles and the Olympics guarantees spectacularity:

"The Olympic ceremonies are the greatest show on earth."

Well that is quite literally a bold claim and isn't that a Ringling Brothers trademark? Fox executives: pitting it against the Olympics and it's self-proclaimed "greatest show on earth" opening ceremony is a total weaksauce move. You know it will sink to ratings lows. Is it to prove a point that it can't get good ratings so as to justify your decision to cancel the show? Or are you just hoping it just ends quietly and with minimal criticism while everyone is focused on the games?

This show is too good to cancel. Somebody has to pick it up. The genius move would be for NBC to buy it and run it on Thursdays with The Office, My Name is Earl and 4 Kings. That would truly be Must-See-TV.

category: tv_