Arrested Development has been wrongfully imprisoned!

To my disappointment, the season premiere of Arrested Development was met with the same low ratings that plagued its first two seasons, and nearly drove the show to cancellation. This serves as a strong argument against my theory that my summer might have served as a microcosm for the universe of Arrested Development viewers. It seemed to me that I was surrounded by people who had been drawn to the show by word of mouth, the season one DVDs, and Fox's excellent summer rerun strategy. My parents, my uncle, and several friends of mine had become hooked to the chronicles of the Bluth family, and I was ready to see the show turn into the heir to Seinfeld.

Unfortunately, it appears as if Arrested may be fated to never overcome its Arizona Cardinal-like struggles. My summer test subjects may have been a tainted sample, a rare subset of the population at large who actually appreciate well-crafted, intelligent television. America as a whole still looks to be an army of That 70's Show style drones, unable to get any of the jokes in Arrested Development because they aren't followed up by a laugh track. My only hope is that the first week's ratings were affected by the large draw of ABC's Monday Night Football doubleheader, and that the millions of Americans who tuned into the game will switch over to Arrested next week.

If not, I might have to say goodbye to these.