It’s probably just because I’m a big p—y, but I think the best way for a TV series, movie, or any other piece of art to show that it’s got merit is in how it handles sentimentality.

And that’s yet another way that “Arrested Development” gets it exactly right. If you were cynical, you could say that tonight’s episode (”The Ocean Walker”) had all the in-jokes, continuity, and references to previous episodes that helped doom the series from the start — the “every episode I’ve seen is funny, but I’m coming into it too late to get caught up” syndrome. It’s got all the self-referential jokes required for post-modernist humor (including the still shot from Monster) (which was just genius). And it’s got everything you need to make it edgy, since it’s basically about a guy trying to have sex with a retarded woman and his family’s attempts to hide that fact so that they can steal her money.

But then the ending was just sweet, and done so well. To paraphrase Ron Howard, it was “such a nice moment” and a perfect ending to that storyline.

It reminds me of a movie I haven’t seen yet: Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic. From what I’ve seen of Silverman’s stand-up routine in the past, I can tell that her whole schtick is taking the anti-PC shock-value routine and putting a little bit of a spin on it. And based on the reviews, it sounds as if the spin is there enough to be detected, but not enough to save the movie. One gag that keeps getting repeated in reviews is the line:

Recognizing the political incorrectness of using the term “retarded,” she facetiously corrects herself with “And by ‘retard,’ I mean ‘They can do anything.”

Again, I haven’t seen the movie, but it sounds like she just leaves the joke there — funny, but nothing more than a shock-value joke until you take it in the context of the rest of her show. The bigger joke is that her on-stage persona is so wide-eyed and self-involved and naive that she says something like that and really believes it.

I think that “Arrested Development” started with basically the same gag, but managed to work it into the episode for a real pay-off that’s genuinely sweet and romantic. (And then, of course, only lingered on it for a second before going back to an in-joke, because you don’t want to get too corny.)

The easiest comedy in the world is just doing a reverse on PC speak and patting yourself on the back for being “edgy.” Harder is dodging sensitive material altogether and still making it funny. Harder than that is doing the anti-PC thing for laughs and then layering a bigger message on top of it, like “South Park” and Silverman’s act. And then the hardest of all is to take that and add a genuine layer of sentimentality to it, without coming across as overly earnest and undermining your credibility as someone who’s able to see through the schmaltz.

That’s where “Arrested Development” is too good to be a sitcom, and why it turns out Fox really does suck, after all.

A friend’s e-mail reminded me that it’s already the 5th of December. I keep thinking of this TV movie where Robert Hays gets a gold watch that can stop time and various hilarious hijinx ensue. If I had it, I think I’d just use it to get caught up on work and reading. Which of course raises no end of philosophical questions — in particular, would the internet continue to function if time had stopped for everyone else?

I’d intended to already have flight reservations for the trip back to GA for Christmas. A helpful travel tip: don’t wait until the second week of December to make flight reservations for Christmas, unless you like spending over $900 on plane tickets. I don’t (and really, can’t), so I had to wrestle travelocity to the ground and threaten to spit in its face and tickle it until it started peeing unless it gave me a cheaper flight. What I ended up with routes through Las Vegas, has me flying out the day before Christmas Eve, and still is over five hundred bucks. I just want to say again how much I hate airlines and flying in general.

But apart from that, how about that Christmas spirit, huh? There’s a chill in the air, the frost is lining the car windows, and the new GAP ads are starting up. TV comedians are already starting in with the seasonal “isn’t it funny how people don’t appreciate that Jews don’t celebrate Christmas?” material, and the ultra-violent and/or scatlogoical Rankin Bass parodies are making their way to the internets.

Since I’m going to be in SF for so long, I wonder if I might actually need to get a tree this year. In a depressing turn of events, Urban Outfitters is no longer selling the pathetic Charlie Brown Christmas tree. The alternative would be something that I’d have to find room for and then, I guess, decorate, and then have it just sit there without presents under it. Maybe I’ll just get into the Christmas Spirit by vacuuming instead. Bah!