Arrested Development

http://www.american-allergy-supply.com/history/pillow-zipper-small.jpg
SHAZAM!

I can take all comers!

http://www.familyties-tv.com/postcards/justine.jpg

*which was dud too

I can only hope I can actually watch the second episode now.

David Cross' character and the son crack me up, but the entire cast is quite good.

It might work better as an hour long show.

I'm pretty shocked it a full season since no one is watching it. The only bad part is the Ron Howard voiceover...no need for it.

But yes, it should be longer. It should always be longer.

It's amusing and fresh and I laugh, but no great shakes.

It really isn't paced or setup like most sitcoms. With the continuing storylines, the only TV comedy that it can be readily compared towards is perhaps "Soap", but the pacing is much more frantic than that show.

I particularly like the "on the next episode" bits at the end.

ps jeffrey tambor is this generation's funniest actor

s locki is old! Whaddaya gonna do oldie old guy? hit me with your cane?

I totally forgot she was in DIfficult People. Now sad that there aren't new episodes.

me too :(

So s5 is up. Only 2 eps in tho, so far so meh.

Exactly my feeling so far, worse than s4. But my brother said it picks up in ep 3

ep 1 felt sluggish and lacked the show's typical pace. my hopes aren't high, though I thought the re-edited s04 was great.

episodes 1 & 2 are a total rehash of season 4, but the reason of the season is considerably better.

it's still not the same as those first two seasons :(

Maeby is better in this season.

the first two seasons are gold and nothing can spoil them, not even constant rewatching

It does indeed get significantly better after ep 2 - I'd even say it gets close to the pace and feeling (and sometimes funniness) of the early seasons

there's a lot of good moments, i need to watch it again. i had a feeling throughout that they didn't quite nail the characterization of GOB, maybe all those forget-me-nows scrambled his brain even more than before. one thing i really thought improved over S4 was Michael, he is really amazing in that that straight man role. the wacky Michael of S4 was hard to watch.

saw the first half of season 5, it's just kind of there. not really that funny. the Gob-George Sr. stuff is v lame. the Maeby stuff is the most interesting just cos it is fun to see her in different disguises.

i've gone back to rewatch some of season 1. yeah it was comedy gold right out the gate. they definitely slipping since then.

shawkat is the funniest one now!

she's the one who it feels like the writers have the best handle on, followed by, in order, Lucille, Buster, and Tobias

Shawkat was absolutely otm throughout that interview.
Shame they cut her quotes

I am still in the middle fo rewatching season 4 and the entire Wall joke is amazing now in 2018.

the Maeby stuff is the most interesting just cos it is fun to see her in different disguises.

OTM whereas I was groaning every time Tobias showed up in costume. Uh, just like they do in the show I guess.

Almost done with season 5. GOB is totally forced in this??? and the David Cross/Kyle Mooney stuff is the worst. the rest is kind of fine.

But yeah, Maeby is the mvp this season.

Huh I just realised we're nearly finished with s5. I've been waiting for it to get good (Maeby and George Michael scenes are the best imo) but there's too much re-visiting not quick-enough storylines and too much Ron Howard (he should stick to the narration which admittedly he is excellent at)

only half the season has been posted so far.

yeah ive gone back and rewatched the first 3 seasons. feels like every episode had some crazy brand new plot to it. it is unfortunate w s5 they kind of got mired in leftover plots from s4, which weren't that great to begin with. apparently there were a lot of behind the scene issues, last minute rewrites, etc. that affected the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRbc7Qn1Bp4

thought this recent interview w Cross was interesting

second half of season 5 is up

braced for the badness

wow i was just thinking about this yesterday. forgot that s5 wasn't over

s4 was quite good in retrospect

I never thought there'd be a time when I feel 'meh' about new AD, but here we are. I can't remember much about the first half of s5.

Maebe in the retirement home is the only thing that comes to mind for me, but I spoiled it by binging the inferior new edit of S4 beforehand

it's extra-infuriating that Hurwitz spent so much time doing that just months before Netflix started showing off about the choose-your-own-adventure technology that the original S4 had been designed for

...but then didn't exist or he wasn't allowed to use or w/e happened

also, how on earth is it nearly 6 years ago since SEASON 4 came out??

i didn't watch s4 when it came out because everyone was so down on it and i had found s3 pretty moribund; then years later i gave it a try and was something like 2/3rds thru really enjoying it (post above somewhere) when all the episodes disappeared and were replaced by the new edits lol

while researching this post i discovered you can still watch them if you go to the "trailers" section! but at the time i just lost momentum and forgot about it.

My last post here was that the season picked up, but I can't remember a goddamn thing about the first half of s5 and have zero desire to watch more

odd that arrested development was first to use "the sound of silence" as meme sadness cue, but totally missed out on "careless whisper" as meme sexy cue.

i still sort of enjoy this show. watched a few episodes of the second half of season 5 last night.

it does occur to me that if i still got as much out of the show as i did watching seasons 1 and 2 nearly a decade an a half ago then i would've binged all the new episodes the second they were released. the pleasures of the show are a lot more subdued now.

there's no laugh out loud moments.

my main complaint, which I've made about all the post-season 3 arrested development itt repeatedly I'm sure so i apologize, is that it is no longer really a sitcom, and the ensemble cast is not really ever, eh, ensemble. characters have their own arcs, they share the screen with maybe one of the other main characters, then it goes on to another plot arc with some family members who are not interacting at all with the ones we just saw.

the plot is so convoluted that you sort of lose track of what the hell the characters' motivations are anymore

i think the timing's been really off since s3, as well, and the kind of comedy AD is lives and dies on its timing.

i need to rewatch s1-2 at some point, as the subsequent seasons seems to have dulled my love for it.

There are insane amounts of ADR in this half season. Sometimes it's played as a joke (oscar with his mouth obscured like wilson on home improvement) but it's always distracting.

George Michael's involvement in the family business is satisfying, and ends the show well. GOB finally pulling off a cheesy illusion is good too.

season five is really bad. feel like it’s a deliberate tanking of the project (and who can blame them)

yeah, I couldn't keep track of all the plotlines, not because it was confusing or there were too many of them, but because they were bad, and also the episodes were bad and unfunny.

the denouement of S5 is one of the most disappointing in all TV

oh jeez this is awful (s5)

Yup.

Yeah, I couldn't get through the second half of s5. Gave up after a few episodes.

I thought season 5 was quite a bit better than season 4. still quite shit and not a patch on the first couple of seasons, or even season 3, which was already a step-down imo.

interesting that this and twin peaks are definitely in my top 5 tv shows but I think that the majority of both shows was bad lol

yeah i watched a couple of episodes of season 5 and it did seem better than 4. the worst thing about 4 was what a fucking loser they turned Michael into.

Huh.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/netflix-removing-arrested-development-original-seasons-1235521721/

And that's why you always buy a hard copy.
Actually, I was thinking that I'm not sure if I can bring myself to buy a DVD of s4 and s5 - checked Amazon and it doesn't even look like s5 was released on DVD?

I heard a radio show the other day about these kind of cancellations - it means they don't have to pay any residuals to the cast

Netflix doesn’t pay residuals at all afaik, not least because to do so would be releasing viewership data

I read they pay residuals based on subscriber numbers rather than view count. May give them incentive to cut underperforming shows

This sucks / I have the DVDs SOMEWHERE, but...

I mean I haven't watched it in a few years but could imagine myself going back and rewatching (again) at some point in the future.