E. M. Esq.

This secret: I have discovered it. It’s all about third seasons. Black Books especially, but especially Arrested Development – the only way you could beat the jokes-per-second density of AD3 is by watching Airplane! on fast forward.

Which is not to say that writers should completely skip the first two seasons of a new show. Temporal logistics aside¹, that would be depriving us of some fine material. No. But on the other hand, why waste your A-game? And why keep us waiting?

Clearly the only solution is to hire a technically competent team of writers who nevertheless lack that certain spark, and task them with writing the first two seasons. The original creators and true creative minds can write the third season concurrently², with the lesser seasons being held back for release as a DVD extra.

I literally cannot conceive of any problems with this plan. Someone start writing cheques for me now, because I am on fire.

1. Physics: ever the enemy of comedy. Well, except slapstick. [↩]
2. Or maybe they’d have to wait a while, have a staggered start to the writing of each season… I don’t know, the bean counters can work it out. [↩]