Maybe people just don't like it...

I got back from my vacation a few days early, basically because I was tired but also to watch the Yankees get into the playoffs. So last night, the division well in hand, I decided to just bull through the 6 hours of shows I had taped since I left (see the list in the last entry). I'll give my opinions of the other shows later, because I want to save space to talk about the best hour out of that six, the season's first two episodes of Arrested Development.

It was great to see that the writers had lost nothing over the summer; in fact, the first two eps of Season Three were even better than the last few from Season Two, packing puns, wordplay, and other jokes in the rapid-fire fashion that marked the best Season One episodes.

For instance, Lindsay shows Michael a photocopy of a Volvo she wants "That's not a Volvo," says Michael. "Oh, yeah, that's when I was sitting on the copier," Lindasy says casually. After a few more quickly-spoken lines, Michael puts the perfect tag on the conversation: "Glad I didn't spring for color".

The common-thread jokes AD is famous for were also there: various characters standing with a fishing pole and sleeping bag, waiting for a camping trip that never came, Tobias' clueless gay double-entendres (an ongoing story), the "Biggest little mistake you ever made" in reference to Reno. It was so tightly-packed (something Tobias might say!), that it took me an extra ten minutes to watch each episode, because I kept rewinding to catch something I missed.

Oh, and Charlize Theron was there, too. She looked hot.

So why are the ratings so bad? Apparently, viewership for AD is down in the new Monday at 8 timeslot, even lower than the levels that got its episode order cut from 22 to 18. I think I have a theory: people don't like it. I know, it sounds obvious. But what I mean is this: it's been on now for three seasons; everyone who would have sampled it by now would have done so. And they've turned away. Not that the show's too smart for them; I know plenty of fans of smart comedy who really never got into the show. It could be that the episodes have too many hooks and inside jokes for the viewers (like me) who have been there since the beginning, and people who just jump in just can't get through those hooks. Or it could be that they're not into running gags and wordplay that are character-dependent; they don't know these people, so the jokes aren't funny. I'm not sure.

What I am sure of, though, is that I'm going to really enjoy Season Three of Arrested Development, because there may not be a Season Four.