Arrested Development 20th anniversary

[mr. logic]

Gotmilk, that's excellent. I was going to try and say something near to what you did, but from a less positive perspective. I remember my friend telling me that season 4 was brilliant because it all led to a huge callback fest, and I thought...that's part of Arrested Development, but I didn't really care about (or for) that element at all.

If anything, I think its straightforward storytelling and jokes and character building is underrated because people would get so pleased about identifying something they had seen in episode three seventeen episodes later. But to me, that had nothing to do with why I loved it, and it felt like the writers had misunderstood their own genius when that type of thing was all they went for.

Tarantino and Eminem did a similar thing. They didn't quite get what made them so special in the first place and went after the thing that most appealed to their ego.

[gotmilk]

Thanks. I quite like a certain amount of self indulgence (my favourite Tarantino film is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) but there is obviously something to be said for straightforward discipline and craft. One thing that people often neglect to mention is just how well seasons 1 - 3 are directed - say what you like about the Russo Brothers these days, but they and others attack the original episodes with a real comic precision. Every joke and reaction was perfectly delivered and timed, in a way that's just not true of the revival. Season 4 and 5 often feel like a load of footage which can be jumbled about in any order, which explains why Hurwitz was compelled to make the 'Fateful Findings' cut. Season 5 is odd in that it tries to hew closer to the structure of the old show, but episodes begin and end at arbitrary points without any sense of rhythm, and without even the impressive overarching design of season 4. Again, probably a byproduct of juggling the actors' schedules and having to do constantly rewrites.

Maebe's scenes are really good though!

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

I am a total original season 4 apologist but I really noticed the messy structure in season 5 - there are episodes that start and are clearly intended as structural midpoints, then reach what should be a conclusion, but still have 10/15 minutes to fill. There's a real lack of discipline that ultimately sours the whole experience. There are also lots of reprisals of jokes that just don't work, e.g. George Michael's total regression being an excuse to parade former glories or Lottie Dottie DA being an attempt at repeating a joke name in the spirit of Bob Loblaw but just not working.

[ajsmith2]

^ would also like to second what a great post that was gotmilk. I love season 4, I think it's one of the best and singularly inventive seasons of TV comedy ever and superior to the original show in some aspects and I do think that a good percentage of those that don't haven't properly given it a chance (and to me, anyone attempting to dismiss it as a straight up binfire haha because waah it's not the same as it used to be as I've seen many do just hasn't engaged with the material well enough, sorry.) but you do make good points about what it lacked that the original run had.

Good point about the melancholy undercurrent to S4 as well, I think it's one of the reasons I like it so much, it has this slightly past-it poignancy to it, but in a good way. I dunno a kind of Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads one decade on where do we find ourselves kind of thing. Whereas S5 just seems plain past it, but not in the good way. Very good points that express stuff I've thought better than I could write about the various factors that completely stymied S5. It's almost scary how rapidly outside elements like Transparent and Trump/The Wall caught up with them inside less than half a decade and made plot points from 2013 obsolete/unworkable. Like the 00s originated world of AD still kind of made sense in 2013 but had been completely crushed by the forces of relentless cultural entropy by 2018/9.

[billyandthecloneasaurus]

Series 3 is alright, significantly worse than 1&2 but nowhere as bad as 4 (I didn't even bother with 5). It sorta feels like s7-9ish of the Simpsons to me, in that it still sorta feels like the classic golden era of the show, with plenty of excellent moments, but just not as outrageously consistent in its brilliance. The Mr F stuff was stupid as shit too.

[evilcommiedictator]

I think the right thing to do at the end of Season 5 would be to have Maybe and George Michael go to trial for their FakeBlock fraud, echoing George Sr and Lucille, because you know they can't arrest a husband and wife for the same crime......remember when they got married in the hospital?

[DrGreggles]

The FakeBlock reveal is one of the reasons the original s4 format was so good.
Although the first 5 or 6 episodes suffer because of it on the first watch.

[neveragain]

It's so annoying (Anyong!) that the original format of s4 is no longer on Netflix. As others have said, and as slow as it was at times, the remix got it so so wrong, dragging the whole thing out more and killing any artistry that was there. Still not peak AD obviously.

To nail my flag to the mast, I think s5 was a bit of an improvement. After a dodgy start. And the ending was fitting.

I also, yesterday, listened to the interview in which Jessica Walters cries over the bastard Tambor's behaviour towards her and only one of her castmates (Alia Shawkat) seems to care. Or the rest of them are afraid to speak out. Horrible. Cowards. And I'm shocked at Jason Bateman being so heartless. I know he's been in the industry since he was a kid but still.

[chip]

What happened again? Was she made to cry IN the interview? What did JT say?

[neveragain]

She cries in the background of the interview while everyone else is recounting/diminishing the incident, saying it was just par for the course in a creative industry.

https://youtu.be/mmT3N8WIiz8?si=PD8gIvxMbkPyaA6v

I don't know what Tambor actually said to her or how but if it was enough to crush a woman who had worked in Hollywood for 60 years then it must have been pretty bad.

[chip]

Oh man, yeah that's not nice. Pop Pop does not get a treat

[BritishHobo]

It's crazy how unambiguously fucked that interview was. Bateman doing proper damage control and claiming it's perfectly normal, while a coworker of many years weeps and says she has never been subject to behaviour like this. None of the blokes making any attempt to take on board how upset it made her, and all acting like it's some distant theoretical situation rather than something that directly affected her.

[Snrub]

It's so annoying (Anyong!) that the original format of s4 is no longer on Netflix.

It's still there, if you go to Trailers & More on the Arrested Development page, all the original cut episodes are under there

[dontpaintyourteeth]

IF I'M NO DAVID SCHWIMMER, YOU'RE NO JENNIFER ANISTON!

[neveragain]

It's still there, if you go to Trailers & More on the Arrested Development page, all the original cut episodes are under there

Ahhh thankyou kind Snrub!

[Kelvin]

Been re-watching loads of clips of AD on Youtube this month, and I've really been struck by what a great character Michael Bluth is in that original run, despite ostensibly being a straight man who reacts to the other, more cartoonish characters.

Jason Bateman is just so goddamn funny in the role. And underneath the pitch-perfect performance, he's such a great, contradictory character. Principled and empathetic at his best, but snide, condescending, and self-absorbed at his worst. I've really come to appreciate what a brilliant character he is on this re-watch.

[mr. logic]

Been re-watching loads of clips of AD on Youtube this month, and I've really been struck by what a great character Michael Bluth is in that original run, despite ostensibly being a straight man who reacts to the other, more cartoonish characters.

Jason Bateman is just so goddamn funny in the role. And underneath the pitch-perfect performance, he's such a great, contradictory character. Principled and empathetic at his best, but snide, condescending, and self-absorbed at his worst. I've really come to appreciate what a brilliant character he is on this re-watch.

Couldn't agree more. If it wasn't such a square opinion I might go as far to say he's my favourite of the lot. P

[Sonny_Jim]

Been doing a rewatch and the seemingly massive change of character of Michael in the first episode of season 4 was very jarring.

Seasons 1-3 he's clearly not a nice person but at least he had some redeeming qualities, but in 4 he's just an arsehole.  I figure it was supposed to be like that, 1-3 he's holding the family together and 4 he's just falling apart.

[DrGreggles]

Seasons 1-3 Michael is trying to be a good man and a good father, but the arsehole tendancies would occasionally surface.
Season 4 they're always prominent.

[ajsmith2]

Have to admit I liked it when Michael became more rubbish and pathetic in S4, it felt like a cosmic levelling out of the playing field amongst the regulars after he got to be the roll eyes sensible straight man to all these supporting eccentrics and delusionists in S1-3. To me it didn't diminish Michael so much as it rounded out the rest of the regulars thru comparison: suddenly no one has it even part way together, they're all lost in their own way on their own individual trip and that means you can invest in them all equally without the straight man framing.  It also adds to that sense of entropy and poignancy that s4 has as mentioned above: The wheels are coming off, and now no ones got the map.  I know most won't agree but I greatly appreciated the switch, I think it added a significant new note to the show.