I am in total agreement with the OP about AD. Totally without humor and a waste of electrons.
Humor is subjective and all that and I understand why somebody wouldn’t like ADD, but, for me, it is the most tightly written, densely comedic, and just plain intelligent television series of at least my generation (I was born in the 70s–actually, now that I think of it, The Simpsons in seasons 2-7 would provide serious competition). And the wide variety of humor every episode has: punnery, visual humor, slapstick, metahumor, situational, irony, absurdism, etc. it hits 'em all.
The first time I saw ADD, I had heard nothing about it and caught it midway in the second season (I had been living away from the US for awhile.) One episode and the next day, I literally watched nearly 30 episodes back-to-back to catch up to the season. I had never done anything like that before, but I just couldn’t stop: the show was the funniest goddamn thing I had ever seen (with, as I mentioned, the possible exception of The Simpsons in its heyday), and I haven’t seen anything like it since. It was exactly the kind of intelligent, quirky comedy series I’ve been waiting my whole life to see. The only show to come close to recreate some of that feel and humor is Community.
But if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Among my friends, it’s pretty evenly divided on the love/dislike scale. (My SO hates it…and The Simpsons.) But if that style of humor speaks to you, it’s about as good as it gets.
Oh, please. The OP isn’t just new to the forum, he appears to have come here specifically to cause controversy, and so far the only posts he has made are in this thread. He may very well not like AD but he certainly isn’t looking for an intelligent discussion about it.
There is no coolness factor attached to AD. Some people like that kind of humor, some don’t. I think the opposite is true - some people think it’s cool to say they don’t like it.
I missed the edit window:
But if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Among my friends, it’s pretty evenly divided on the love/dislike scale. (My SO hates it…and The Simpsons.) But if that style of humor speaks to you, it’s about as good as it gets.
You are wrong.
Humor is probably about as subjective a thing there is so AD just didn’t work for you and that’s fine.
There is a concept known as being a Comedian’s Comedian. Those are stand up comedians that usually have a limited fan base but other Stand Ups think they are hilarious. I think Arrested Development is the sitcom equivalent of that.
I never liked it either. It wasn’t funny. It was uncomfortable much in the way The Office is uncomfortable, but The Office also has stuff that IS funny sometimes.
I also love BBT and I will watch Two and a Half Men. I’m not crazy about the second, but I love the scenes with the son. He steals the show and always has.
killingspree, you are not alone. I hate it too.
A few of my friends raved about it, and I decided to give it a shot. It has its moments but doesn’t even come close to living up to the hype.
It feels like a show that thinks it’s more clever than it actually is. As if the writers were in the room with me while I watched, and everytime they made a joke, or called back to an earlier joke, they nudged me and said “Hey, see what we did there? Get it?”
“Umm, yeah, I get it. It’s just not that funny.”
Arrested Development is one of those shows that some people just won’t get because you have to really be paying close attention and have to use your brain to get some of the humor. A casual watcher might completely miss something that’s hilarious if you put 2 + 2 together (mostly inside jokes and pop-culture references).
I’ve seen the entire series a few times now and on the most recent watching, I was still laughing out loud and catching things that I’d never noticed before.
Some people just aren’t ever going to find it funny. It depends on the type of sense of humor you have.
I really enjoyed Arrested Development. Some episodes were merely amusing, while others really did make me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. Sure, the plot itself was predictable, but it never seemed to me that the plot itself was the real point of the show. The plot was a device upon which to built the absurd scenarios and the funny lines, and for me it generally performed that function just fine.
I really enjoyed the characters. Michael Cera was great and, as others have pointed out, this was before his awkward-but-likable persona got old and stale. Will Arnett was fantastic as G.O.B.; the mere thought of a Segway now makes me smile, and i can’t hear “The Final Countdown” without thinking of his magic shows. I really like Portia de Rossi, too, as the self-obsessed Lindsay; she took this type of character even further in the very funny (and canceled too soon) Better Off Ted.
I’m also a fan of the deadpan style of sit-com, especially the shows that don’t insult their audiences by inserting a laugh track. It has gotten to the stage now where, unless i’m revisiting some classic from my youth like Fawlty Towers or All In The Family, i just can’t watch shows with a laugh track. If something is funny, i like to think that i can work it out for myself without being prodded by canned laughter.
George Sr.: I don’t think you should let George-Michael go on that church thing.
Michael: Dad, her name in Anne, and he doesn’t “go on” her.
Comedy gold, IMO. 
I agree with you here–there’s definitely a lot of self-consciously clever humor in the series that can be off-putting. But, for me, the humor works, and every time I re-watch an episode, I find something I missed (much like it was with the era of The Simpsons I like.)
Agreed. And Rush fans are never wrong 
:rolleyes:
Really? The “you don’t get it” trope already?
To clarify, his SO hates Futurama. Not The Simpsons.
You are not allowed to call another poster a troll on this site unless you are posting in the BBQ Pit. killingspree may not know this because he’s new here; everybody else should already be aware of this. So the discussion of killingspree’s intent in posting this thread (or anybody else’s intent in replying) is over.
You know who else doesn’t like Arrested Development? Nazis, that’s who! And Republicans want to ban it!
Sorry, I thought we should get the rest of the lame arguments out of the way at once. Carry on.
When it comes to creative material, I don’t like the over- or under- rated label. It comes across to me as saying “a lot of people have a different opinion than me and they are wrong”.
The bread going into the shredder still makes me laugh out loud sometimes.
I think saying something is overrated is probably a bit pretentious (even if it’s true :)) but I think it fair to say something is underrated. A lot of cool stuff just never found an audience.
That’s not even remotely true. There are A LOT of threads about how much some movie, TV show or book sucks. How many threads have we had about Twilight where the series is insulted in the title? There was a thread about Love, Actually that was titled “Crap, Actually”. I myself once started a thread titled something like “10,000 BC is a bucketful of stupid”. The only difference here is that some Arrested Development fans treat the show like it’s a holy relic. Be honest with yourself here, would you have reacted the same way if the thread was titled “The Hangover is overrated and not funny”? Of course not.