The Return of Arrested Development

Arrested Development's first 3 seasons are three of the most magical and hilarious seasons in television history. The show has made many top 10 lists for best show ever created, despite the fact that it only had less than 60 total episodes. I will never forget first witnessing Tobias' as a never nude, Buster's hook hand meltdowns, or Gob alienating his employees with "COME ON!!!" Only Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and the first 4 or 5 seasons of The Office have provided me with equal amounts of laugh out loud moments. But where AD really shone was in its rewatchability. Even watching an episode for the 4th or 5th time would peel back more comedic layers. This might account for the fact that the show never took off in the ratings, and it was abruptly cancelled after a short third season. After more viewers got a chance to watch the show on streaming sites and DVD, the clamor for a movie or the show's return ramped up substantially. For years a movie was rumored, until the bombshell finally came that the show was returning with new episodes, to be premeired on Netflix. I was naturally ecstatic for the beloved Bluth's to return. But history has taught us that just because our favorite characters are returning, it doesn't mean that the show we love is coming back in full force.

There have been more examples of a cancelled show being revived, but the two I have experience with are Futurama and Family Guy. I discovered these two shows like most people did, as a part of the nightly Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network. It basically became a ritual for me to watch these two every night in high school. Both were incredibly hilarious shows that seemed to have been cruelly cut down in their prime. Fox decided to revive Family Guy at some point during my senior year, and Comedy Central brought back Futurama a few years later, both to shouts for joy from fanboys. But while both had successful runs, I just felt like the magic was gone. Family Guy decided that it was going for in your face shock value, and Futurama just felt... off.

With this background, I was excited but wary for the return of AD. And after reading about the convoluted scheduling problems that forced creator Mitchell Hurwitz to get creative and focus on one character per episode, I was even more nervous. What results is a mixed bag that has some laughs, way too much convoluted story, and character changes that don't really make much sense.

(Some Season 4 spoilers ahead)

Michael was always the straight man in the original run. And while he was just as often doing stupid things and being just as narcissitic as the rest of his family, he generally kept his head above water. Season 4 plays Michael as a clueless loser, something that I just didn't buy. George Sr. is equally bone-headed, going totally against his character. While George wasn't exactly a genius, he was always a smart businessman that was ruthless and selfish. In Season 4, he makes one idiotic move after another, a role that I didn't like him in. However, Gob, Maeby, and George Michael were all back to their former selves, and their episodes especially worked. Tony Wonder's voice mail message that Gob listens to might be my favorite bit of the entire season.

The nature of the episodes focusing mainly on one character per episode really worked against the new season. With such a big ensemble, AD's greatest strength was having all of these characters play off of each other. In Season 4, characters like Tobais and Lucille get tons of screen time all to themselves. I absolutely love those two characters, but 10 straight minutes of Tobias alone just can't sustain my attention. And with the show returning on Netflix commercial free, the producers lengthened each episode by almost a full 10 minutes, which hurt its flow. 22 minutes is almost a perfect run time for a sit com like AD, and most Season 4 episodes are 30-35 minutes long.

The last few episodes were much stronger than those in the middle, with Lindsay and George Sr.'s installments being particularly boring. Hurwitz's insistence on making the story arc being as clever as possible made me feel like there was less room to be funny. There were certainly many funny moments in this season, don't get me wrong. The "To Catch a Predator" gag with Tobais was hysterical, as was the Simon and Garfunkel cutaways that would always close in on Gob. And hearing Tobias exclaim "Ninja please!!" is probably a line that could become as quotable as "I've made a huge mistake." The episode structure most certainly lends itself to the "binge watching" model that Netflix teases by releasing all 15 at the same time. It took me about a month to watch them, and I wonder if I would have been more impressed by watching them in a shorter time span.

Season 4 ends abruptly and awkwardly, and leaves many loose ends for future episodes. I would love to see the Bluth's come back for season 5, with only one request: return to the original format. Focusing on one character at a time draws away from the shows strengths, and a true ensemble performance is what would return the show back to its glory days. A phrase I've heard tossed around is that a bad season of Arrested Development is better than anything else on TV. I don't think that is entirely true, but Arrested Development is still a good show, and definitely still worth a watch. I'm just not sure it's worth endless re-watches like the first three seasons were.