Despite lackluster ratings, FOX is sticking with the critically lauded "Arrested Development."
The network has picked up the freshman comedy for a full season, ordering the back nine episodes after the show's fourth week on the air.
"We really chose the right partners," executive producer Ron Howard told Zap2it.com last week about FOX's dedication to the series. "They continue to believe in the show."
That belief has more to do with the creative side than with ratings. "Arrested" is averaging about 6.7 million viewers a week through its first four airings and retaining about 70 percent of the audience from its lead-in, "Malcolm in the Middle."
The offbeat series has garnered near universal critical praise, however, earning "best new sitcom" honors from a number of publications. It stars Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi and Jeffrey Tambor as members of a dysfunctional, wealthy family who have trouble adjusting to a lower standard of living when its patriarch (Tambor) is arrested for shady accounting and the family's assets are frozen. Howard serves as its narrator.
"Arrested" is the second new series FOX has picked up for a full season, following "The O.C." The network has already cancelled the low-rated "Luis" and "Skin."
To give audiences an additional chance to sample the show, FOX has scheduled a full night of "Arrested Development" from 8 to 10 p.m. ET on New Year's Eve.
If you watch FOX on Sunday nights, you're likely to come across a promo spot that says something like "Stay tuned for Ron Howard's 'Arrested Development.'"
Howard is an executive producer of the freshman series, and he's pretty much a household name from his acting career ("The Andy Griffith Show," "Happy Days") and his work as an Oscar-winning director ("A Beautiful Mind," "Apollo 13"). So it makes sense that the network would want to associate the show with the man.
Yet beyond the brand-building requirements of network hype, "Arrested Development" is more Howard's baby than any of the TV projects his company, Imagine, produces.
"I just had a notion here, kind of an idea that I thought was fun and creative and I'd like to work on," Howard says of the series, which airs at 9:30 p.m. ET Sundays on FOX.
With writer Mitchell Hurwitz ("The Ellen Show"), Howard developed the Bluths, a wealthy, spoiled family that loses most of its money when the patriarch George (Jeffrey Tambor) is arrested for shady accounting. His son Michael (Jason Bateman), the most down-to-earth member of the family, drags the rest of his relatives kicking and screaming into the real world.
The premise was Hurwitz's, but it was Howard who had the idea of shooting the show like a documentary. He also serves as its narrator, going for a style he describes as "very dry ... like the narrator for a National Geographic special on the indigenous people of the Amazon basin or something."
"In conceiving the show, we were talking about using the new grammar of reality television in a way that would allow us to be funnier and move the show out of the living room or the office and really open it up," Howard tells Zap2it.com. The device also allows Hurwitz and Co. to "pack the show with more laughs -- more visual humor, the kind of irony of the fake documentary, and characters who are funny in and of themselves."
"Arrested Development" has won over critics, who have almost universally anointed it as the best new comedy of the season. Audiences have been a tougher sell -- the show is averaging only about 6.8 million viewers a week through its first few airings.
Despite the slow start, though, Howard says the network is standing behind the series.
"They remain very committed, and I really respect it," he says. "I think they sense we're onto something. ... There's sort of a new style of TV comedy that's evolving, and if it's not 'Arrested Development,' it's going to be something an awful lot like it."
Howard also helped convince Liza Minnelli to make her first TV series appearance in years. The singer and actress begins a guest stint Sunday (Nov. 23) as Lucille 2, a rival of George's wife, Lucille (Jessica Walter).
"Mitch wrote this great character, and he didn't quite know how to ask Liza Minnelli," Howard says. "I had known her a little bit over the years, so I picked up the phone and called. I said 'Look, I don't know if you want to be on a TV show or not, but if you'd ever consider it, you've got to read this script and meet with Mitch.'"
Minnelli liked the character and the cast, and signed on to appear in a couple of episodes. That number has since grown to five or six: "I don't think Liza will end up becoming a regular for the run of the show, but she's hilarious, and Mitch keeps writing for her," Howard says.
Howard acknowledges that "Arrested Development" is several degrees off the center of most sitcoms, but he sees that as one of its strengths.
"I think the show is different. It has a level of sophistication, but it's also silly and laugh-out-loud funny," he says. "I think one of the things [we're doing] is trying to let audiences ... discover is that 'different' doesn't mean it's going to be smug or witty but not really funny. 'Different' can mean different and still funny, so you can still laugh as hard at this as you can at a 'Seinfeld' episode."
I've been watching this since it began, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. It's been the best show on the FOX lineup, though the critics are overrating it thus far.
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