Does anybody else have theories (crazed or otherwise) as to what is going on?
I can think of two reasons why Fox would not “pull the plug” just yet:
First, it gives Fox a backup plan in case Murder Police crashes and burns Sit Down Shut Up-style (although even if Fox were to order more episodes tomorrow, I doubt they would be ready before next March) - after King of the Hill “ended” the first time, Fox noticed it had nothing to put in its place and had to scramble to get everybody back together to make more episodes, so they’re telling the TCS staff not to make other plans just yet.
Second, once Fox does “officially” cancel the show, I have a feeling Cleveland is on the next moving van back to Quahog, so Fox has to be absolutely sure about it.
If all these are true then The Cleveland Show is history :(. I know they eventually brought Family Guy back, but they never brought *Futurama back, and King of the Hill *was merely stopped part-way into what was supposed to be its last season (Fox didn’t even bother broadcasting the last four episodes, they premiered on Adult Swim).
Fox essentially lies when shows like these are ‘cancelled’ simply because they know that it will incur the wrath of us internet fanboys. So they just let them fade away instead…
I was an outspoken hater of the first ‘block’ of The Family Guy, the ones that ran from '99 to '03 or so before it got cancelled. Even though I’ve come to like the show since its resurrection I stand by my dislike of the early seasons, those episodes were simply terrible. The characters were simplistic, annoying, unfunny, two dimensional stereotypes, the performances were similar: wooden, stilted & cliched, and the scripts were predictable, lame, uncreative, un-witty and just plain bad (it was nothing more than an incredibly awful Simpsons ripoff).
It’s amazingly ironic that ten plus years later and The Simpsons have degraded into lame, un-witty crap while Family Guy has matured into an innovative, fleshed-out, edgy and genuinely funny show. Doubly ironic that this season’s Simpsons finale’s funniest joke was a line spoken by guest Seth McFarlane’s character (“That was you?!”) Anyway, since Family Guy was brought back all his subsequent shows have been similarly well made, American Dad & Cleveland. I’m sorry to see it go.
Of course none of them even comes close to being as good as Bob’s Burgers…