Was the Last Season of 'Til Death a Secret Surrealist Masterpiece?

For most of its existence, the Brad Garrett-Joely Fisher sitcom 'Til Death was more capable of serving as a punchline to someone else's joke than providing its own. Perpetually low-rated and critically lambasted, yet renewed for four seasons simply so Fox would be able to pair it with other half-hour comedies (or maybe it was out of sheer malice?), most of America stopped watching 'Til Death before its series finale on Sunday -- that is, if they even started watching. Apparently, though, we all missed something kind of insane.

According to The AV Club's Todd VanDerWerff (who may now hold the uncontested title of the world's preeminent 'Til Death expert), the last season of the show went off the rails completely, breaking the fourth wall down until it was mere rubble:

Perhaps realizing that the role of Ally (Joy and Eddie's daughter) had been played by four actresses over the course of the series (including Krysten Ritter!) while the role of boyfriend/fiancee/husband Doug had been played by only [Timm] Sharp, the series embarked on an astoundingly bizarre story arc: It had Doug realize he was a character in a sitcom whose wife kept getting recast, then sent him to psychotherapy to make peace with this fact.

The Doug story arc was one of the more unexpected things on TV last year, including the character riffing on the generic brands the other characters were using (and tossing in a tie-in to another storyline, no less), the other characters joking about how if they were a sitcom they'd be in a timeslot where no one would watch them, Doug slowly coming to realize he could neither swear nor have actual sex, and a whole episode where Ally was recast yet again and Doug had to come to terms with it before realizing the actress playing his new wife was much friskier in the bedroom (even as he realized that the camera would cut away before anything would happen). [...]

By the time Doug and Ally's wedding rolled around, the show had finally lost it completely, tossing in lengthy animated sequences done in styles ranging from Disney to Edward Gorey, letting Fisher sing at length, and having Garrett do Rodney Dangerfield impressions for no apparent reason. You wanted to stop watching; you couldn't look away. This was television made by consummate professionals who were pretty sure no one was ever going to see it, and it was somehow gloriously awful and compellingly watchable all at once.

And suddenly, 'Til Death has rocketed up to the top of any discerning hipster's Instant Watch list. Let Brad Garrett explain it all to you:

Nobody's watching: The strange genius of the fourth season of 'Til Death [AV Club]