Normally I don't update twice in a day, sometimes I don't update twice in a week (oops). However once I read about this I just had to post about it.
Arrested Development's return has been confirmed with a 9 or 10 episode mini-series followed by a movie. How great is that? One of the finest sitcoms of all time (and the finest sitcom of the last decade) returning to us! I'm very happy, Arrested Development is one of my top 1% shows.
"I'm peeing with @batemanjason at the moment..and we can confirm that we are going to make new AD eps and a movie"
Jason Bateman an hour later then tweeted:
"It's true. We will do 10 episodes and the movie. Probably shoot them all together next summer for a release in early '13. VERY excited!"
I don't have the words for this one, it's right up there with the return of Futurama as one of the greatest events of my television watching life. All I need now is the return of Vic Mackey to the screen and I'll be set for the near future.
The second (and concluding) part of my podcast with Lucia of Heroine TV is now up on her site (here). We tackle shows like Frisky Dingo, Dollhouse, Pushing Daisies, Drive, Terminator, Better Off Ted amongst others; and we totally do not talk about Arrested Development (honest!)
It's around the three and a half hour mark as we got a little carried away. Enjoy!
Direct Link
Now honestly I'm someone who prefers British Comedy above all other forms but there are quite a few American comedy shows that I will put my hand up and admit that I love: How I Met You Mother, That 70s Show, Friends, Seinfeld, Police Squad, My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, Curb your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock but one of them stands above all the rest as the undisputed king and queen of American comedy and that's Fox's red-headed stepchild Arrested Development. A show that is so badly treated by Fox that it doesn't even have it's own official site anymore, we have shows that ended in the 1990s that still have well maintained websites but Arrested Development really is something that Fox just seem to want to sweep under the carpet and ignore.
Arrested Development is the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together. It ran for a total of three seasons, with fifty three episodes and it stars Jason Bateman (Hancock, Smokin' Aces, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as Michael Bluth, the middle son of the Bluth family - a wealthy family that has made their fortune in property development. Michael is one of four children, his older brother is George Oscar Bluth/God (Will Arnett, Blades of Glory, 30 Rock, Rattatouille) an illusionist/magician and the founding member of the Magicians Alliance. His twin sister, Lindsay Bluth Fünke (Portia De Rossi, Nip/Tuck, Ally McBeal) is an activist, fund raiser and has one daughter with her husband Doctor Tobias Fünke (David Cross; The Colbert Report, Futurama, Mr Show with Bob and David). Michael's youngest brother Byron 'Buster' Bluth (Tony Hale) is best described as a helpless mother's boy, coddled by their overbearing and unpleasant mother, the undisputed matriach of the family Lucielle Bluth (Jessica Walter, 90210). The family is headed up by George Bluth (Jeffery Tambor; Hellboy II, Muppets Wizard of Oz, The Larry Sander's Show) and Michael has had one son, George Michael (Michael Cera; Superbad, ) with his now sadly desceased wife.
"Even if it means me taking a chubby, I will suck it up" - Tobais
The family has everything they could ever want, they live a luxurious lifestyle and are used to having enough money to be able to do anything. But during the first episode of the show George Bluth Sr. is arrested for defrauding investors and spending the company's money for 'personal matters'. It is this event which starts the series and sends the family spiralling off into a world where they're struggling and unable to keep up the lifestyle they held previously.
As just about every member of the family is unpleasant, stupid, greedy and generally incompetent so the task of keeping the family together and out of trouble falls to the good son - Michael - a task that might not sound too difficult but it turns out to be just about impossible. Gob is blackballed from his own Magician's Alliance ("Aaahah") when the news reveals the secrets of his Aztec tomb (where he attempted to hide his father) and is unable to get any gigs, Tobias loses his medical licence after performing CPR on a sleeping man and decides to become an actor instead, Lindsay is simply lazy and uninterested in helping, Lucielle is a raging alcoholic at best and a manipulative, domineering witch at worst and poor Buster is so incapable of functioning in the real world that he can't even tell the difference between the sea and land on a map.
Arrested Development is very much a British show in style; that is, it's about a bunch of very unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to themselves and others. The cast has only two genuinely 'nice guys' in it; one of whom is the constantly put upon Michael and the other is his son George Michael (who spends most of his time struggling with an unwanted and illegal crush on his cousin Maeby). But while the majority of these people are spoiled, wretched and nasty they are all very likable in their own ways.
Arrested Development is presented in a subtle mocumentary style, the legendary Ron Howard narrates the story each episode and provides the thrust of events, snide comments and recaps/reminders. He provides a very dry and pleasant narration that feels natural and complements the pseudo-documentary nature of the show. Much like the Office, the show doesn't overplay it's documentary nature, in truth it apart from the narration it's more subtle as it doesn't use talking head interviews or fourth wall direct glances at the camera. For the most part the characters act as if the cameras are not filming them.
Performances from the ensemble cast are superb across the board and if is very difficult to single any particular actors out for praise, but David Cross and Will Arnett in particular are hilarious as Tobias and Gob. Tobias's lines are particularly impressive as a lot of them are improvised by Cross himself, and still the man is consistently funny. So funny that he was bumped up from his original slated position as a guest star into a full blown cast member, an excellent decision - without it we would never have had the 'Blue myself' and 'Analysis/Therapist' moments.
"Pop-pop horny Michael." - George Sr.
Plotting wise Arrested Development is a little unusual for a sitcom, it has a very solid sense of continuity that builds upon itself. Unlike traditional sitcoms that return everything to normal by the end of the episode and tend to ignore developments or not refer to them again, Arrested Development is filled with a continuing story that progresses forwards and changes the situation the characters are in, it is worth nothing that the characters themselves rarely learn from their mistakes (part of the Arrested Development theme suggested by the show's title) and remain as selfish and stupid as always but the storyline provides another layer of comedy. Callbacks and foreshadowing of events abound throughout the show, with many moments that mirror or build on previous jokes or catchphrases, the foreshadowing in particular is exceptionally intelligent in it's structure. There are jokes that are specifically designed for the viewer to only get on repeat watching, I myself have now watched the entire thing four times and the last watching still revealed jokes I'd missed the previous times.
I have no hesitation in calling Arrested Development the best comedy show I've watched, ever. And in fact that's exactly what I did call it when I went through my top 50 shows last year. It's a show so good that even just writing about it makes me want to go and watch it all over again, something I have to physically restrain myself from doing because I have enough to watch and I've already seen it once this year. In essence you should watch Arrested Development if you happen to like television shows, yeah that's it - if you watch TV you should watch this, it's that damn good, it's 'The Wire' of comedy shows.
You must watch this before you die, or you haven't lived.
"Steve Holt" - Steve Holt
Before we go here is the very short and sweet introduction/credits that open each episode:
If you follow from this video you'll be able to find dozens and dozens of hilarious clips, but they don't compare to watching the show in full. It is rare that you find such a layered and clever comedy show as this one. You should watch it before the movie comes out.
1) It's worth noting that the imdb has Arrested Development at a 9.7/10, a score I've only ever seen matched by The Wire on that site.
Direct Link
Arrested Development is the best comedy show to ever get cancelled. Probably the best comedy show of the past ten years. Time for it's DVDs to get assessed..
Packaging:
Arrested Development's packaging isn't really anything that special, the first two seasons come with a cardboard dust sleeve and inside the main box is plastic with the middle cd flip thing so it can hold all 4 DVDs. The first season's box has a decent sized booklet that contains all the episodes and also has a nice large backdrop image on the reverse side of the slip. The second season has less of this and it's clear that Fox decided to spend less, quell surprise there eh? The Third season is even worse off, the season was cut short so it fits onto just two DVDs and the packaging is really skimped on. It's almost suprising that Fox bothered to release the DVD at all.
5/10
(I really hate giving it this score, but the packaging is a reflection on how poorly Fox considers this show.)
Features:
Happily the features section of each DVD is not so badly treated. This is where the creators and cast had the opportunity to take control and the quality starts to shine. We're treated to an extended pilot episode, selected episodes with audio commentaries, behind the scenes featurettes, bloopers, Ron Howard's inside look, deleted scenes, original songs and the featurette showing the last day of on location filming. The commentary isn't bad. It's not up to the standard that Futurama set, but it's still interesting enough to warrant a listen.
9/10
Show:
Arrested Development is one of those shows. What do I mean by that? It's one of the best shows you've probably never seen (Along with gems like The Wire). I still don't quite understand how it failed and why it was so badly treated by Fox. It's one of the premium examples of quality comedy, I'd hold it up alongside Fawlty Towers at times - it's that damn good. It's simply the funniest thing I've watched ever. But yet hardly anyone has watched it and people still haven't twigged about how good it is. I find it incredibly frustrating to constantly find people looking blank when I talk about the show. I can understand why not everyone watches The Wire, it's a hard show to get into and it's a little too real and intelligent for many people who want asinine rubbish like CSI drip-fed into their brains instead. But Arrested Development is accessable to all while remaining intelligent enough that you can still be discovering new jokes on the 3rd or 4th watching of it all. The sheer quantity of call-backs and even better call-forwards that this show uses is incredible, it has incredible continuity and subtle jokes are all over the place.
Plus, how can you not love a show that has a character who uses this as his business card to advertise his training as a therapist and an analysist?
Yes, that's right. It does indeed have this card shown in the show.
The show is so good I'm giving it a bonus point for being that brilliant. Specifically for the Season 2 jokes involving Buster, his mother and an animal (avoiding spoilers there as much as possible).
11/10
Price:
Sadly, it ain't cheap to get this show. Outside of dropped sale prices you're looking at £28 per season for a grand total of £86. You get 53 episodes for that price because once again Fox screwed over the show and shorted their second and third season run lengths. F***ing criminal.
The total running time is just over 19 hours which sadly works out at 7.5p per minute. Which is massive compared to the previous scores (5p, 5p and 2p). While every minute is total quality and it's worth paying this price, I can't score it higher than a seven and if I'm honest it deserves the following score...
6/10
Overall:
The problem here is the show is amazing and well worth getting. But Fox have treated it like total s**t at every opportunity. Even when producing the DVDs they still feel a need to stiff the loyal viewer and try and screw them over. I wish HBO had aired Arrested Development, they understand quality programming.
Note: It's not the fault of the creators of this fine show that it's scored only 77.5%, it's Fox that have managed to drive the score down. Maybe they'll wise up and release a nice smart "Complete Series" box for about £60 and then I can revisit the scores for Price + Packaging and give this show the score it really deserves. Because I feel ashamed at myself for scoring this one so low.
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