A Rant

As many of you know, I am an absolutely huge fan of Arrested Development, a show that was only on FOX for 3 seasons. However, because the majority of America was too stupid to understand the humor, the show was cancelled. Like most of FOX's cancelled shows, it immediately became a hit on the DVD market, so the head writer and executive producer, Mitchell Hurwitz, is currently working on a screenplay for an Arrested Development movie that is likely to feature the entire cast of the show. This news turned me into a teenage girl, who immediately squealed with delight and starting texting all of her friends (OMG, new AD movie, IAGTPM). For those of you unsure of what IAGTPM means, it is text talk for "I Am Going To Piss Myself."

Now let's fast-forward to yesterday where I learned that Mitch Hurwitz created ANOTHER show for FOX that had just aired this week! It's an animated series called "Sit Down, Shut Up" and the voice actors include a bunch of AD favorites like Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler. I quickly began to hyperventilate at my desk. THIS WAS GOING TO BE AWESOME!! That afternoon I sat down to watch the show on Hulu, and got ready for what had to be the most hilarious animated comedy in the history of television.

Horse s#$%. I never laughed even once. I'm not even sure I cracked a smile. Every bone in my body wants it to be possible that Hurwitz only lent his name to this show and had nothing to do with the writing or creation of it because I could not have been more disappointed. The only cool thing about the show is that it's animated characters are put against live backgrounds, which is an interesting twist. The show's writing is lazy and unimaginative. The characters, unlike the Bluths, are completely unlikeable. The writers try WAY too hard to make political points to their audience, which to me, absolutely ruins a show.

Usually writers wait until the show has become a big success before they try to force their views on you (see South Park and Family Guy for current examples). Sit Down, Shut Up waited all of two seconds before introducing as many purposefully stereotypical characters as possible, including a vain, meat head English teacher and a supposedly Christian science teacher who has bumper stickers all over her car and a baby she had out of wedlock. The content of the show was written for shock value and nothing more, so you have all of these character stereotypes doing things at the extreme of what their stereotype might be expected to do (like the bisexual drama teacher who hides in the boys locker room). At the end of the day, there is nothing inventive or intriguing happening and the show feels like it was thrown together during a couple lunch breaks.

I understand that pilots are usually the worst episode of a show's first season, but this one won't be getting any better. There are just too many problems with it, and I won't be surprised when the show gets cancelled. And to Mitchell Hurwitz, you stole 30 minutes of my life, so you had better make up for them with a sweet Arrested Development movie. Just don't get lazy.