NBC
Okay, don’t throw anything at me, but I have a confession to make: I didn’t watch Arrested Development when it aired. In fact, I went out of my way not to watch it. The entire time I was doing this I had this feeling that maybe Fox was just one viewer short of keeping it on the air and my refusal to watch was the final nail in the show’s coffin. I’d be lying if I said that this thought didn’t make me smile from time to time.
It wasn’t my fault! You have to understand just how whiney those Arrested Development freaks were. They would go on and on about how much better the show was than anything else that had ever aired in the history of recorded time. They would tell me that my refusal to watch was literally ruining their lives because people like me were killing the show. They would insist that one day that Michael Cera kid was going to be a big star.
Yeah, right, whatever. In my experience, nothing ever lives up to the hype (with the possible exception of Angelina Jolie’s breasts from Gia) and certainly, whatever enjoyment I could have gotten from the show paled in comparison to the joy I took in watching the snobby AD fans writhe in agony as each month brought renewed rumors of cancellation. Sorry professor, I guess you’ll have to watch America’s Most Wanted with us hoi polloi.
I’m so, so sorry. I get it now. I get the sinking feeling in your stomach. I get the fear that it doesn’t matter how many Emmys they dump at your door, that sooner or later economics is gonna catch up to you. I get the idea of loving a show so much that you feel the need to tell all your friends that they have to watch it, that they’re missing out if they don’t. I get that you do this partly so that your friends can enjoy something as much as you do, but mostly because if they start watching it maybe its place on the schedule will be assured.
I get all this because I’m a fan of 30 Rock.
According to Wikipedia (the lazy blogger’s resource since 2006), last season 30 Rock came in 94th in the ratings. 94th! Almost five times the number of people would rather watch Ryan Seacrest pad out another American Idol results show than watch what might be the funniest TV show of the last 15 years! And you say that there is a God?!?
Sorry. See, this is what passion does to you. You start questioning things. Like, should all the people who are watching Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday instead of 30 Rock really be allowed to vote? If they choose to watch 22 more episodes of people making dreamy eyes at each other over an open torso, how could the possibly make the right choice for president?
Should the people who are watching Kitchen Nightmares really be allowed driver’s licenses? They might get confused by all the wordy signs out there and get into an accident. What about the people watching CSI? They’re being allowed to reproduce without any kind of oversight at all! And you wonder why we’re losing ground in standardized testing.
Let me put it to you this way: the first show that I ever watched that made me laugh for 30 solid minutes was The Simpsons. For the first 8 seasons of that show (for me, 8th grade through my graduation from college), there wasn’t a single misstep. If there is such a thing as first-TV-love, it was The Simpsons.
30 Rock is the only show I’ve ever found that gets me as excited as classic-era Simpsons used to. Think about that! That’s like losing your virginity twice! (Except that it lasts longer than 90 seconds and there’s a lot less crying and apologizing). That isn’t supposed to happen! You’re supposed to get less excited as you get older and more jaded. You’ve seen so much, nothing should impress you anymore.
Well, 30 Rock impresses me. I’m sorry, but it does.
Listen America, you need to help me. You need to start watching this show and you need to start preaching about it. And I don’t mean non-violent MLK preaching either; I mean hardcore, “by any means necessary” Malcom X style! Put on a bow-tie and start forcing people to watch whether they want to or not.
This show cannot be cancelled by lack of interest. If it is, you might as well cancel Thursday while you’re at it.
And if there are any people out there like the old, unenlightened me, reading this and huffing under their breath that there’s no way this show could be as good as I say it is, all I have to say is Angelina Jolie ain’t got nothing on Tina Fey.
UPDATE: CliqueClack colleague Brett Love posted this article questioning whether or not anyone would watch 30 Rock at the exact same time I was writing my article begging people to watch. I urge you all to go to that post right now and comment repeatedly that yes, not only will you watch, but you’ll be telling all your friends (and even strangers in the subway!) that they should be watching too! Do it for your ole pal Jay! Seriously, your ole pal Jay doesn’t have much to live for. He needs this.
Clacked by Jay Black 
on Sep 22, 2008 @ 13:04 EST5EDT
Get out of my head, Jay Black. You’ll not like what you find. :D
And I agree with you, people should watch the show. I don’t ask the question because I don’t want people to watch, more because I don’t understand why they don’t.
But have you watched Arrested Development yet? I love BOTH shows!
*POST AUTHOR*
Actually, I have all the DVDs now for AD, but have not feasted on them as of yet. I figure if the way you AD people felt about the show is the same as I currently feel for 30 Rock, it deserves a looksee.
You can tell 300 million Americans why they should watch a show til you’re blue in the face, but it ain’t gonna do any good unless you get some of the 10,000 Nielsen families to watch it. They are the only ones who have any say in what stays on the air. Good luck finding them. They’re too busy watching Night Rider and other similar garbage to be bothered to watch anything worth a shit. The only thing fans can do to help their shows is to buy the dvds, get active on the official shows websites, and write letters often to the networks begging them not to cancel your show even before there is talk of cancelling your show. You have to blow a lot of smoke up their asses and tell them things like you are not a Nielsen family but you watch the show you are writing about and a bunch of their other shows and how they are the greatest network, with the best and brightest execs and the best tv line-up you have ever seen. Just lie your ass off. And make sure it’s handwritten, no e-mails. You can either do this now or wait until they cancel your favorite show. The Joss Whedon fan club is very smart to get a 6 month head start for Dollhouse. They are going to need it. I quit watching new shows this year and will wait til year 3 or 4 to make sure the show is going to stick around first. Then I’ll catch up on dvds if the show sounds good. I’m tired of watching 4-22 episode mini-series with no story wrap-ups.