SummaryThe Emmy Award-winning comedy series ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT revolves around MICHAEL BLUTH (Jason Bateman), the “normal” one in a family of crazies, who is forced to stay in Orange County and run the family real estate business after his father, GEORGE BLUTH SR. (Jeffrey Tambor), is sent to prison for shifty accounting practices. While Geo...
SummaryThe Emmy Award-winning comedy series ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT revolves around MICHAEL BLUTH (Jason Bateman), the “normal” one in a family of crazies, who is forced to stay in Orange County and run the family real estate business after his father, GEORGE BLUTH SR. (Jeffrey Tambor), is sent to prison for shifty accounting practices. While Geo...
This is possibly one of the most non-linear seasons of television that will ever be produced, and brand new viewers who have just discovered the show should probably start off with the first three seasons. Seasons 1-3 of Arrested Development are some of the funniest ever and they give you a feel of the different format of the show. Season 4 is just as good, but one needs to have a completely different mindset going into it. This is less like a season and more like one gigantic episode of AD. All the classic staples of the show are present; the running gags, the dark humour, and the subtle jokes are all there in a huge degree. The different storytelling technique of this season is reminiscent of the original three seasons of the show, and so, to get the best experience out of it, it would be helpful to watch as many episodes as you can in one sitting. Unhealthy for the eyes? Sure, but you'll love it. Individual episodes of the season may seem to come up short, especially in the beginning, but the latter half of the season contains arguably some of the best episodes of the series. My only critique is that a few episodes run a little too long, but in the end, all complex bits and jokes you didn't get will payoff in what is this show's most ambitious and absurd seasons yet.
I was so glad it rose from the dead. Thank you Netflix, our lord and savior. I joke, but seriously thank you Netflix for being great. It was lovely to revisit these characters and the hilariously ridiculous Bluth family. It had recycled long running jokes that made me feel all warm and happy inside because it was a homage to what we had before. A great resurrection, thanks Netflix again.
Arrested Development often feels like an interwoven series of droll sketch comedies, which means viewers can walk in at almost any time and enjoy the gags.
Arrested remains a bracingly clever but emotionally cold intellectual exercise of a comedy, one that revels in puns, double entendres, intricately structured set pieces, astonishingly inappropriate jokes, asides, callbacks, flashbacks and, less propitiously, its own inaccessibility.
It gets off to a slow start and then takes a while for the whole enterprise to get up to speed. At about the third episode, enough of a foundation has been set that the jokes start to come more easily and more quickly.
The new Arrested Development is uneven--but Arrested Development always was, even at its peak. Binge-watching, though, makes it seem even more uneven, and that's too bad.
You need to have watched them [previous three seasons] to comprehend Season 4--to understand much of its humor or to make sense of its convoluted plot--but if you truly loved them, it’s hard to imagine being anything but disappointed with this new rendition.
I just don't understand all the negative feedback to this season. Yes, exposition in the opening few episodes was needed a lot because of years of absence from television, but the fourth season of Arrested Development proved that this is still the funniest show on television! Er... Netflix. I mean really! Don't be so judgemental! Arrested Development was never going to be the exact same again. I just enjoyed season 4 for what it was. I especially loved the Tony Wonder episode and Buster's. And all of the rest of them as well!
After seven years away from our screens cult sit-com Arrested Development is back and well….. It’s a mixed bag. Since the show was cancelled in 2006 many of its stars have gone on to have successful careers, as a result one of the most difficult challenges to overcome when trying to bring it back was trying to shoot around their busy schedules. Mitchell Hurwitz’s solution to this problem, to focus each episode on a single character showing events from different perspectives, is clever but it makes the show feel very different to its original run.
The new format allowed the writers to expand upon the twisting narrative structure often used in the show’s original run with each episode providing insights into previous events. This concept is used very cleverly throughout to the extent that the fifteen episodes can really be viewed as one ongoing piece of work but, while the multiple call backs are often quite funny; this new format does mean that it is rare to have all the cast members together at once. Since a great deal of the humour arose from the characters bouncing off each other it is fair to say that Season 4 did not make me laugh out loud as consistently as the previous three.
One other slight issue is that, free of the time constraints of being on network television, the creators have allowed some episodes to balloon up and beyond the half-hour mark. This in itself is not a problem but on occasions it is clear that some scenes could have been tightened up slightly to retain the snappy pace the show has become renowned for.
Did Arrested Development need a revival? Judging by this season I’m not sure it did…..
Painful would be a term I'd use to describe AD season 4. The much hyped and anticipated season made its biggest mistake by separating all the characters and placing them in their own story arcs which only slightly meld towards the end. The best episodes include Lucille, Buster and Maebe.
I loved the first three seasons of Arrested Development. Each episode was like a roller coaster of fast paced, wickedly funny, densely packed interactions among an amazing cast of unforgettable characters.
But Season 4... well, it's just not the same for me.
It's not a roller coaster anymore. It can even feel slow in places. The laughs are still there, but they're spread out. And the characters are spread out too. They don't see each other as much. Instead of a lightning speed ride that jumps from Bluth to Bluth and from scene to hilarious scene, Season 4 stubbornly follows a single character for a full episode, sometimes to the point of completely ignoring the others.
For me, it just wasn't as fun as constantly hopping from one hilarious nutcase to another. I kept wanting more Buster, more Lucille, more GOB, more Tobias, etc. But no such luck. It seems like you can go hours in Season 4 with hardly a peep from so many of the outrageous personalities who made the first three seasons so delightful.
Instead, it seems like more effort has gone into setting up scenes that will be viewed from a different perspective in a later episode, in order to reveal amusing plot twists. These can be very clever and very funny, and the way the various stories are woven together is impressively intricate. Even though some of the ends are left loose, which is frustrating, it's still a fun challenge to keep track of everything that's going on. This may be one of the most intelligently crafted shows ever aired.
But Season 4 just doesn't have the same fast paced, bubbly, back and forth hilarity as the first three seasons did. And it spends hours studiously ignoring some of its most fabulous characters. Due to that it can only be ranked as a disappointment. A brilliant and intricately crafted disappointment to be sure, but still disappointing.
I loved the first three season and would prefer to watch one of them again. The decision to focus on one character per episode was a poor one because each character is great only in short doses. The story used to weave the characters together over one episode but not that weaving is over the full season and feels long winded. It like they stretched three episodes of material over the whole season.
Also the jokes like hot ham water or the cornballer that are easy to share with friends are gone as are the fun catchphrases and supporting characters. Nothing in this season deserves to be put on a shirt!
The only reasons I finished the season was because I paid for Netflix just for the show.