When your favorite TV show suddenly and unexpectedly dies, it is not so different from the stages of grief one experiences when losing a loved one or a friend. At first I didn’t believe it was happening. Then I realized that Fox bangs goats anyway, so I convinced myself that my beloved show is too good for those asinine communists. Finally, I read the E! article and realized that Arrested Development was truly dead, gone from TV programming forever. Mitch Hurwitz, creator of the show, had abandoned it, suggesting that he might help on a big screen adaptation. Remember the Spongebob Squarepants Movie? Yeah, me neither.

Realizing Arrested Development’s dire situation, I became extremely angry. I was in Mexico at the time, and would yell at random people in the street and say cryptic things like, “A sea of waiters but no one to take my drink order!” I then began to bargain, wondering why my Emmy-winning show had been axed while the inferior Geico’s Tiny House survived. A little research revealed the explanation for this: no one watched Arrested Development.

The show’s average viewership had been 6.18 million. American Idol averaged 27.6 million viewers on Tuesdays, and a million more on Wednesdays. Statistically, about as many people watched Arrested Development as WWE. Goodness, Arrested Development barely beat Spongebob reruns, and the viewership of Spongebob is diluted by adversities facing their fan base (i.e. “Mom grounded me from watching TV” or “Dude, you gotta find the vaporizer”).

Having progressed to the third stage of grief and now trying to cope with my loss, I came up with three reasons why people didn’t like M Arrested Development:

1. They were too stupid to understand the intelligent, complex humor. For example, many of the show’s jokes relied on double entendre. One of the favorite jokes among the show’s fanbase occurred while the protagonist’s family company was under investigation for treason after signing a contract with Saddam Hussein. In an effort to hit on a model, the company’s inept president adopted the slogan “Built Like a Rock.” The joke resided in the fact that the new slogan was a homonym with “Built like Iraq,” but making this connection required viewer intelligence. That may be why the joke fell flat.

2. They just didn’t understand humor. These people are condemned to live a life of misery and Matlock.

3. They found it hard to get into the show because there were a lot of characters and numerous recurring themes. Example: Why was Tobias never nude and perpetually wearing cutoff jeans to avoid nudity? What was the deal with the romantic undertones in the relationship between preteen cousins George Michael and Maeby? Though the show tried to cut to past events and explicate plotlines, new viewers still felt confused about what was happening and why each character acted in his or her own peculiar way. The interweaving of stories and the fact that plot loops often took a month or more to close led to the show being rather inaccessible, despite its hilarity. Essentially Arrested Development's followers had to be either long-term fans, or buy the episodes on DVD.

Buying the DVDs makes particular sense in the case of Arrested Development because of the disks’ replay value. During most people’s first viewing, about half of the jokes just don’t register. For example, Ben Stiller’s magical cameo in the episode “Sword of Destiny” is actually foreshadowed much earlier in the season through a picture showing him baking himself into a loaf of bread. Again, this is precisely the sort of joke that a hardcore fan will love, but a passive viewer will miss entirely. But making the show more accessible would have necessitated abandoning such references, a stipulation unacceptable to any true Arrested Development fan.

Recognizing the insolvable nature of these hurdles, I became depressed. People hadn’t been watching my beloved show, hadn’t loved it as I had, and I needed to cope. I would quote Arrested Development to my friends, saying things like “I need a tea to give my dingle less tingle,” and “Goodbye, it’s been fun…not.” But, alas, they had never seen the episodes in question, and without any context they thought me a one minute d-bag.

Other fans coped in different ways: one writer authored an article on hecklerspray.com titled “Arrested Development Cancelled: Retards More Influential Than Thought.” Others tried to save the show: “Save our Bluths” began as a grassroots effort to preserve the show, involving mailing postcards, writing letters, and even sending enormous stuffed bananas to Fox executives.

People say the grieving process cannot end without acceptance of the loss. In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare wrote, “What’s gone and what’s past help/ Should be past grief.” But my heart could not let go of Mitch Hedberg’s words: “Fuck you, that was funny.” Shakespeare needs a banger in the mouth. But as the sun came out, I began to realize that there are other outlets with which fans of Arrested Development can discover great humor. I just watched that Yo Momma show on MTV, and it’s pretty good. And really, comics like Dane Cook are producing some excellent material. As many similarities as Fox has to post-Bolshevik Russia, I believe the writers of Arrested
Development will be spared from the firing squad, perhaps to pen a new brilliant show and give rest to my soul at last.

Goodbye, Bluths.