Saturday, April 23rd, 2005

"STEVE HOLT!"

So what is this? Get Arrested? It looks like a Fox-maintained site, and it says that Arrested Development is back this Summer – what’s up with that? Reruns? Like that’s going to satisfy anyone… Is this their way of telling us it’s been renewed, or are they just taunting us? Philly.com wonders exactly what the deal with the “loyalty oath” is. Via Bradley’s Almanac.

It took me two or three days to getting around to watching the season finale from this past Sunday. I couldn’t help noticing, a little sadly, that they made a point of wrapping up all the plot threads to some degree, such that if they didn’t get renewed there wouldn’t be any cliffhangers dangling for all eternity. If, as the cynic in me expects, Fox declines to renew it (ASSHATS!), I would hope that someone like HBO would jump in and pick up the show, even though that means that I’d have to bit torrent it since I don’t get HBO up here (nor do I have the pay-tv channels that would carry it domestically). It would be a complete travesty of justice if they didn’t. Complete and utter.

Matador celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of their flagship artists by commissioning a very special tribute – Yo La Tengo Breakout. It’s harder than it looks, especially when you’ve got the two balls going at once, but that Ace Tone isn’t going to save itself. Via Largehearted Boy.

A couple show announcements – Montreal’s Dears are at the Phoenix June 10 and Seattle instrumental post-rock outfit Kinski tour through Lee’s Palace on August 20.

The geekosphere is all abuzz about the first official image of Brandon Routh as Superman, and the buzz is not unlike the sound of a swarm of angry bees. My first reaction? Gads, that looks bad. The small insignia looks dumb – it draws attention to the fact that it’s a big-ass leotard. The reds are horribly muted and almost brown, though some speculate that’s to make digital enhancement in post-production easier. And the little insignia on the belt? Pure cheese. One of the commenters over at The Beat has colour-corrected the image and resized the insignia, and it looks much better (though they left in the silly belt). I’m still willing to give Bryan Singer the benefit of the doubt that he’s putting together a decent film, but I would have liked a better first impression.

Scanning the TV guide for next week, I see the following in the description for Monday’s 24: “Chloe is forced into field duty”. Oh God oh God oh God.

np – The Sadies / Stories Often Told

By : Frank Yang at 10:12 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. 4/23/05 10:40 am

     Matthew says:

    I think that it is fairly unlikely that Fox will cancel the show, if just because they keep a lot of shows that don’t perform well in the ratings (King of the Hill, Malcolm in the Middle), and they are making money off of the show in dvd. There’s a lot more to it than just ratings. I think that they are paranoid about the Family Guy thing happening again too, and they also probably enjoy having a "prestige show" in the line-up.

    Also: in television, particularly with Fox’s modular line-up, you don’t show reruns unless you’re renewing the show. I doubt it will be reruns in the summer, but rather a run of new episodes, maybe a 13 episode order than could be extended to a full season. I get the impression that’s how the show will survive, sorta like how Conan O’Brien made it through his first five years on the air.

    However, if the show is off the Fox schedule, the most likely place it will end up with be FX, mainly because they’ve already aired the show in the past and it’s all part of the same corporate family. HBO is tremendously unlikely.

  2. 4/23/05 10:43 am

     Frank says:

    I don’t get FX either.

    I hope you’re right – I doubt they’d advertise it returning this Summer if it wasn’t new episodes, that would just seem to be courting PR disaster. But the fact that they’d put it on the website before formally announcing it’d been renewed seems odd.

    Also, I will never give Fox the benefit of the doubt of doing the intelligent thing. Never ever ever.

  3. 4/23/05 12:09 pm

     Jackalope says:

    Fox has made a point of saying the traditional concept of the TV season is dead, so it’s not entirely weird that they’d start new ‘AD’ episodes this summer, rather than wait until after the World Series in November…

  4. 4/23/05 12:40 pm

     Five One Seven says:

    Freakin’ awesome! 24 will be a sit-com yet!

  5. 4/23/05 1:57 pm

     mr g says:

    the "returns this summer" message was probably added to the get arrested site because, ya know, the show won’t be on the air for may sweeps (the bastards). i said it before: if fox cancels arrested development & someone like hbo doesn’t pick it back up, i am DONE with fox. 24 be damned, even if chloe’s doing field work (i guess every other field agent had been killed off this seasons).

  6. 4/23/05 4:17 pm

     elby says:

    frank, join the ranks of super-fandom. join the op. http://…/

    i think they will just show AD reruns this summer because they haven’t formally announced that it’s returning as new episodes. on a recent Air America interview, David Cross gave no indication of shooting new episodes anytime soon (they would have to get on that if it’s returning for 13 eps) and he also said a FOX exec asked him what he’d be doing on "hiatus" this summer. while everyone is reading into it too much, "hiatus" is a good word. the buzz has been positive so far. and i think the reruns indicate that it will be back for a third season.

  7. 4/23/05 7:27 pm

     troy steele says:

    Arrested Development is the best thing to ever happen to TV. Just imagine where they could go in the third season with George Michael and Maeby alone. The show actually did WORSE it’s second season, finishing 118th in ratings, so you can see where Fox would have a hard time justifying keeping producion going. The answer seems to be for Fox to bring it back for a shortened 13 episode season to maintain critical praise and awards and DVD sales for subsequent seasons. If the show gets renewed (and I agree, I lose all faith in humanity if it IS cancelled), I would be shocked if it got anything more than half a season’s commitment. For what it’s worth, I read a story on off the Associated Press newspage that a TV Expert (what a job title!) was guessing that Fox has already decided to cancel AD and the GetArrested campaign is a smokescreen so they can say "Well, we tried."

  8. 4/24/05 1:53 pm

     Matthew says:

    I don’t really care if we get "full seasons," 22 episodes is a lot and I’d rather them do shorter, tighter seasons a la HBO and BBC seriess. Just keep it going , that’s all I want. But even still, I’m happy with 40 amazing episodes. There’s only 30 Strangers With Candy, and 14 episodes of The Office. We already lucked out.

  9. 4/24/05 1:54 pm

     Matthew says:

    Only 12 episodes of Peep Show!

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