The Iron Yuppie

I'm sure that there are plenty of people my age, if not older, with my IQ, if not higher, that enjoy the programming on Fox. However, I'm fairly certain that Fox doesn't care.

My theory is that Fox looked at the 2000 election, saw that people were identifying with a plain-spoken guy who hides his intellectuality (if he actually has any). They said, alright, we can identify the sweet spot. Let's program towards that. At that point, Fox decided that we were no longer an important part of their viewing audience.

I don't believe that Fox actively says, "No, that's too smart", and cuts the show, but I do believe that they give those shows (e.g. Arrested) a much shorter leash than shows with no intellectual challenge at all (The Quintuplets or That 70's Show). The fact is, the latter shows can be funny to anyone who turns them on at any point. They require no concentration and they use the same jokes and timing of a million other shows prior to them.

There was a King of the Hill where Peggy said something to Luanne with no reaction. Then she said the same thing and then rang a cowbell, and Luanne laughed. "The cowbell tells the listener that the joke is over and yes, it was funny." That's the premise behind these showes.

Arrested, on the other hand, required you to concentrate and follow the show from pretty much the beginning. There were jokes where, if you were paying attention, were hysterical. If you weren't you felt left out and stupid for not getting it. I didn't get it at the time, but there may have been a veiled reference to the people who didn't like Arrested. In the Ocean Walker episode, Rita suggests that the two characters in Maeby's movie walk across the ocean to meet each other, if it's not too deep. Maeby says, "No, that's perfect. People will wonder what just happened, but they won't want to look stupid, so they'll just say that they liked it."

Anyway, we clearly just have to say goodbye to the Fox network because they've already said goodbye to us.