Oh, come on!
So the four episodes of
Arrested Development airing on Fox tonight are probably the last new ones we'll ever see. Fox hasn't officially cancelled it, but their top guy has made it clear that it will not be returning. The gossip maven from
E!'s website writes today that ABC and Showtime are both prepared to offer deals, but that Hurwitz and the cast are leaning towards throwing it in. She quotes an "Anyong-in-the-walls deep" source within the show as saying there's only a 20% chance of the show returning. So tonight is most likely the end, for real. This reminds me of that night in July of 2000 when NBC burned off three of the four unaired episodes of
Freaks and Geeks in one night. This isn't quite as depressing, but still, man, drag. For the last couple years AD and
Lost have been the only shows that I'm totally obsessive about, where I won't answer the phone or make any plans whatsoever for the nights they're on. Of course AD has been on so infrequently this year that I've already adapted to not planning an evening around it. The last few Mondays have been intensive
Gilmore Girls nights, usually tearing through three or so episodes. The missus and I would probably be obsessive about watching GG on Tuesdays, if we had been able to catch up through the first five seasons before the current one started. We actually just finished season five last night, which is the last one thus released on dvd. Unfortunately I don't see it possible for us to catch up on season six before seven starts, so we'll probably never become regular weekly Gilmore viewers. Anyway, I suppose
The Office could replace AD as appointment television for me, but even though I really like it hasn't grabbed me as tightly or resolutely as AD or Lost or
Buffy or Freaks and Geeks or
The Simpsons or
Facts of Life all have in the past. I've missed the last few episodes of The Office without feeling any remorse. I downloaded one from iTunes, actually one that I missed back in December, the "Booze Cruise" episode, but that was mostly just to see what it's like watching tv on the train to work. It's probably the closest to being a potential obsession for me, but it's still not at that level. I guess for the time being at least Wednesday will be the only night where I allow the tv to boss me around.