The Second Coming of Bust(er), aka Arm-Off-Ageddon

My experiment with Save Me is still going. From a "how do they treat God, faith, and religion" standpoint, I'm very pleased. Most of the characters are depicted as flawed, but good, and making incremental improvements to their lives. Love and forgiveness trump haughtiness and condemnation. Perhaps best of all, the "prophetess" is fully committed to doing God's will, even when the instructions that come are difficult and/or in direct opposition to her own will--just like true prophets and disciples do (or should do).

From a "is this a good TV show" standpoint, the outlook isn't so good. It's just not very funny. NBC is burning off two episodes at a time, which is usually not a good sign for a show's future, but it is on NBC, which doesn't have much if anything they could replace it with. I hope it sticks around, because its perspective is refreshing and different than anything else (at least that I'm aware of) on mainstream TV. And maybe the writers will figure out how to make it funny--perhaps unleashing Diedrich Bader a little more?



Of course, the biggest TV news of the last week was the return of Arrested Development. I took my Sunday night shift off and my brother and I binged on the new season--nine episodes on Sunday, six on Monday. And since the new stuff was on Netflix and free of typical network commercial concerns, each episode was 30-ish minutes long. It was a lot of TV.

Most people who I know that have watched some or all of the new episodes are either disappointed or very disappointed. They weren't perfect (Buster was wildly underused, for example, which makes the title of this post somewhat misleading, but it was the best I could come up with), but considered collectively I thought the new season was very good. I have some theories about why others were disappointed, and some comments about why said theories are wrong, but I'll save those comments for a future post, when everyone has had a little more time to watch and I won't feel bad about giving spoilers.

I'm very much looking forward to another TV resurrection that will happen later this summer. Whose Line Is It Anyway? is coming back, with Wayne Brady and all the other great improv-ers, and just as importantlyly, without Drew Carey. The man ruins TV franchises, or at least makes them considerably worse. The US version of Whose Line was still pretty good, but if host Clive Anderson had been brought over with the show when it was imported from the UK it would've been much better. And Carey is clearly no Bob Barker. He's not exactly brimming with enthusiasm.

So AD has now found a second home, and Whose Line is on its 4th network (counting the BBC). But they're hardly the first shows to find new life years after their supposed cancellation:

--Soap operas All My Children and One Life To Live were recently reborn on Hulu, two years after their decades-long TV runs came to an end.

--One of my all-time favorite shows, Charles In Charge, was canceled after just one season on network TV, but was later picked up in first-run syndication. Of course, many of the actors had taken other jobs by that point, so they made Charles the "manny" of an entirely new family.

--Bill Lawrence is either very lucky, or is just more committed to and more willing to fight for the shows he creates than most: two of his sitcoms, Scrubs and Cougar Town, have been picked up by a second network after being canned on the first.

--Jay Leno lost his Tonight Show gig only to get it back a few months later. Fortunately, he'll be going away again next year, this time (hopefully) for good.

--Seinfeld had a sort of alternate universe resurrection on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

--Likely the most successful example is Family Guy, which was canceled by Fox after three seasons and 50 episodes. Massive DVD sales brought about its return a few years later (also on Fox, making this the only show I know of that had its first and second run on the same network), and eight seasons later it's still going.

Switching networks actually happens way more than I thought (can't believe I forgot that the final season of Family Matters was on CBS). Throw in reboots, movies, and even fan fiction, and a canceled show with a devoted fan base is never completely canceled.

Eventually, one "show" that has been on hiatus for a loooooong time will make its grand return. It will be the ultimate "Sweeps Week" stunt--the sweeping of the wicked from the earth during Christ's Second Coming. As you may have guessed, the Second Coming is the subject of this week's Sunday School lesson. I suggest everyone study up so they can be prepared for class. (It's a good start toward being ready for the actual Second Coming.) Since I've already done so, I can now get back to watching TV.