Arrested Development's 2nd Season - Why I think the show failed

Arrested Development: Season Two continues the misadventures of a highly dysfunctional family called the Bluths. This hilarious and quirky series, which was nominated for and won a slew of awards, was already doomed by its second season because the network made fewer episodes than before. By the show’s third season, it was reduced down to almost a half season, then it was cancelled. Keep reading and I’ll tell you why I think this show failed, despite all its acclaim.

The main plot of this series involves senior Bluth (Jeffrey Tambor) being a wealthy businessman who is arrested in the pilot episode for fraud and treason. He’d secretly been doing business with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Just like in the first season, there are a lot of jokes about Iraq and Saddam, but they are hard to laugh at now. I saw the online video of Saddam’s hanging and the subsequent video of him with a big hole in the side of his neck. After witnessing someone’s death, it’s hard to find any humor in joking about them, you know?

At the end of the first season, senior Bluth escapes from prison. In this season, he turns back up to hide out in the attic of the house where his children live. The Bluth company deals in real estate, and most of the family live in a model home out in the middle of some nowhere development. What makes this show so funny is how weird and unique the characters are, as well as how great were the actors who portray them.

Jason Bateman continues playing the straight character in all of this. He’s the most responsible one who was never spoiled like the other children, so often he gets a lot of things dumped on him. Bateman’s dry humor and calm reactions to the other characters show off his acting ability, and his career is flourishing after this series ended. Will Arnett continues to be hilarious as the loser brother who thinks he’s some kind of great magician, though most of his tricks fail horribly. The way he portrays the character’s overabundance of confidence despite constant failure is great. Portia de Rossi is also good as the spoiled sister whose husband, played by David Cross, just might be gay. There’s a lot of gay jokes in this series, which is especially funny considering that Portia is herself a lesbian. Tony Hale still gives my favorite performance as the sheltered momma’s boy who loves his mother just a little too much. He plays the character like an overgrown little boy.

In addition to the brothers and sister, there’s Jessica Walter as the neurotic mother who isn’t afraid to pick favorites among her children. She’s a complete witch, but it’s funny to see how the family deals with her. Rounding out the cast are the two children, played by Michael Cera and Alia Shawhat, who are cousins. Cera has a secret crush on Shawhat, but that is diverted through most of this season thanks to him finding a Bible thumping girlfriend named Anne, who his father doesn’t like.

The running story in this season involves Bluth hiding out while trying to still run his family and the business. I didn’t think this season developed quite as well as the first one did. This is only a half hour show, and it is hard to keep so many running plot lines going in a 23 minute episode. In some of the later episodes this season, several minutes were spent recapping what happened in previous episodes. When you’re watching these on DVD in order, that gets kind of annoying.

I’ve really enjoyed watching this show and found something very clever and hilarious in every episode, but I can name several reasons why it failed to gain an audience and was ultimately cancelled. In the DVD extras, there’s one part where David Cross rants about all the awards the show has been nominated for and then he blames poor marketing on the show’s lack of success. I think this television series is a perfect example of how critical acclaim does not equate to commercial success.

Primarily, I think this show was too dirty for primetime TV. One running joke in the show is to have the characters use profanity, but film it in a way that their mouth is covered so you can’t see what they are saying when the sound bleeps out. The problem is that they use the F word quite a bit, and you just can’t do that on a comedy show on network TV. Another problem is the overly sexual nature of the show. There’s not one, but two incestuous relationships going on, first with the two cousins and then one implied by the son and mother. That combined with the closeted gay husband again makes this show too edgy for primetime.

Also, there’s a general meanness to most of the characters, and this makes them less appealing to general audiences. Unless you were to watch this show from the beginning and really get into the story and characters, you’d think this show was populated by a bunch of selfish and arrogant characters, which it mostly is. Despite being a well-written and funny show, most of the characters are hard for people to identify with, and many of the comic situations they get into are too over the top. One reason why shows like Seinfeld worked so well is because they made jokes out of things that have happened to all of us. As for this show, how many people can say they’ve had a magic trick go wrong in front of a crowd?

Personally, I would recommend Arrested Development: Season Two if you already saw the first season and are invested in the characters. Otherwise, the show doesn’t improve beyond the first season, and it ends very quickly in the next season. I think this show would have flourished on HBO where it could have been as uncensored and raw as it obviously wanted to be, but instead it just got stifled by network television.