Exit with a Whisper

Season two of Arrested Development ended Sunday night with little fanfare. The show received no major send-off befitting a sitcom of its quality. You may be asking: Why should this show be recognized in such a grandiose way? All it did was complete a second season. Well, it should because more than likely it wasn't just the season finale, but the series finale, as well. It's a stunning development, as sitcoms on television have begun to define the vast wasteland that Newton Minnow described when he wrote about the advent of TV.

Television content is perpetually changing. For the more than 50 years television has been in existence, networks have incessantly tweaked their lineups, attempting to fill their hours with programs that are both critically and commercially pleasing. The latter criterion is often more important to a show’s survival than the former. With that in mind, it is not unreasonable to assume that certain genres of shows will not survive.

We've heard constant complaints since Seinfeld left the airwaves about the death of the sitcom. Quickly, aside from The Simpsons, name one sitcom that has been worth watching since Seinfeld. (Friends doesn't count because, frankly, it's not very good.) Today's standard bearer for the sitcom is the atrocious, contrived and boring Joey, a spinoff of the mostly-dry Friends. But this TV thing works in cycles. The sitcom died in the late '70s, but it was revived again in the early '80s with The Cosby Show. That sparked a renaissance in the genre.

Tony Kornheiser, a columnist with The Washington Post, is the focus of a new show on CBS called “Listen Up.” The show does not necessarily mirror his personal life; rather, its storylines are based on columns he has written for the Post. He’s not a technical supervisor, he’s not a producer, he’s “just here to hold out my hands and catch the money.”

But even he notices the trend in television these days, admitting that Listen Up is premiering in a troubled time in sitcom history. “Just this week I read a story saying sitcoms are dead. Reality shows are in. Franchise dramas are in. (Like “Law, and Order A BLT,” and “CSI: Skaggsville.”) Animated shows are in. Sitcoms are out. ABC dumped a sitcom with Jessica Simpson. If a hot babe like Jessica Simpson can’t get her sitcom on, what chance does a sitcom about an old, fat bald guy have?”

Probably a slim one. Sitcoms have fallen victim to an increasingly commercial world. If a show is not making money immediately, it will be canceled just as quickly. The Clerks cartoon series debuted on ABC in the middle of the summer of 2000. Its competition during its first week on the air was the NBA Finals. ABC had commissioned six shows. The station aired two before parting ways. But perhaps more troubling to audiences is that situation comedies have not evolved since the three-camera set-up and static set employed by Desi Arnaz for I Love Lucy. In the same vein, the comedic value of sitcoms has remained staid and stale for the past 10 years. What Jackie Gleason was doing in 1955, many shows are still doing 45 years later. In some cases, it has devolved.

But Arrested Development is a different story. If you had to compare the show to another program, it would most easily assimilate to Soap. But that's just it. It's difficult to find another show -- past or present -- that is as original as AD. There's no laugh track. It's filmed in a documentary format. The writing is heady, nuanced and clever. So, it seems the show transcends an everyday audience. It draws a loyal 6 million viewers a week, but that's only good enough to rank between 110-120 in the Neilsen Ratings, which is good enough to result in cancellation.

We should be lucky a show such as AD has arrived. It could've removed us from the programming duldrums of reality TV and bland, overused dramas. Perhaps AD would've been the The Cosby Show of the new milennium; the show that catalyzed a turn around in television programming. But it appears the show will become the newest member of the "Excellent, but cancelled" fraternity.

But what do we get from FOX instead? American Dad, the tired, unfunny cartoon from the creator of Family Guy. FOX is missing out on a television classic in the making. It's my hope that another station, cable or otherwise, will pick up the show and allow it to continue its run, because quite honestly, it's one of the very, very few sitcoms -- hell, TV shows in general -- on television worth a damn.