I hope everyone has heard about Netflix’s revival of Arrested Development, because it’s absolutely great news. I just got Netflix a couple weeks ago, and I have completed several series including Little Britain, Sherlock, The I.T. Crowd, The Inbetweeners, The Office (UK), NewsRadio, Community, Undeclared, Freaks and Geeks, and finally: Arrested Development. And the greatest 2 things about Netflix is that it costs $7.99 and here’s the better part: it’s bringing back a bunch on cancelled shows, and might just continue, because the results are great.

After the success of the House of Cards remake released on Netflix only. And now, the next seasons of Arrested Development, Jericho, and The Killing. Just great news.

And now, Arrested Development fans get news of what the plot is, who the cast will be, and the studio released this list of  episodes as well.

And recently, Netflix put some character posters online for the upcoming show, guess which poster is for who:

These posters are great! I’m assuming only fans of the show could guess which characters go to which poster, and that means you understand how clever each one is. If you’re not a fan, watch the show, and keep these in mind!

Onto season 4 of Arrested Development:

When asked about the plot, producer Mitch Hurwitz said:

“The bigger story is the family has fallen apart at the start of our show. They all went their own way, without Michael holding them together, so they’re left to their own devices, and they’re not the most successful devices. […] Each individual [episode] kind of depicts what happens in 2006 as the Bluths fled from the law on the Queen Mary.”

There’s more good news: there’s rumours of some guest stars for the upcoming season:

Some semi-regular favourites returning, including Liza Minnelli (as Lucille 2), Mae Whitman (as Ann or better known as “her?”), Henry Winkler (as Barry Zuckerman), Jeff Garlin (as Mort Meyers), Scott Baio (as Bob Loblaw), and Ben Stiller (as Tony Wonder).

And finally, there’s some news that Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig are set to guest star. Now, there’s no word on what character Rogen is playing, but Kristen Wiig is set to play a  young Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter). The obvious assumption would be that Rogen would be set to play young George or Oscar Bluth (both played by Jeffrey Tambor), because he could actually play a convincing you Tambor, but also because of the way the show is going to display itself in the 4th season (more on that later).

Then here’s where it gets interesting:

Set to make appearances are Conan O’Brian with friend Andy Ritcher

Andy Ritcher has been on Arrested Development before, but it’s not sure who exactly he will be when he returns. Allow me to explain for those who haven’t seen the show:

Andy Ritcher played several characters on the show, in fact he played identical quintuplets

Chances are he’ll be returning as himself and maybe one of his brothers, but no word on that yet.

Rumours have been flying around that Terry Crews, Isla Fisher and Mad Men’s John Slattery are guest starring as well, making the cast almost comically large…

“Mitch isn’t trying to recreate something. It’s been away for a while, and part of the fun that Mitch has been mining and exploiting is, what’s new to discover about these people? What’s delightfully unchanged? He and the writing staff and the actors have a fantastic sense of that. They’re pretty brazen, pretty bold and fearless. That’s what made the show into something that fans really kept alive.” – John Slaterry

Also, there have been some set photos that show the 4th season will get at least one episode with a Workaholic feel to it:

I’m even more excited about it now… I’m not sure which episode(s) the Workaholics stars will be in, but based on the outline of the 4th season (based on a statement from Hurwitz that’s just below), these guys are definitely in one episode with Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), but they could also be in another episode, but with a different cast mates storyline…

What you may have noticed from the episode titles is that this season won’t be anything like the others… You see, with each episode, you will see that characters perspective of a particular situation and the following episodes will happen and interact in the background of the other episodes…

The episode titles:

• Michael 1
• Michael 2
• George Sr. 1
• George Sr. 2
• Lindsay 1
• Lindsay 2
• Tobias
• Gob
• Maeby
• Lucille
• Buster
• George Michael 1
• George Michael 2
• Gob 2

Producer Mitch Hurwitz also had this to say:

“Contractually, we couldn’t use all the characters in every episode; they were not free to do as much television as they want. [As a result], we’re not jumping from one thing to another [as we did in seasons 1-3]; you’re staying with one character [per episode]. [T]he moment you saw in one show will reappear in another show from a different character’s perspective. If people watch it all at once, it will seem like a giant ‘Arrested Development.’ It’s really tailored for Netflix.”

The great thing about all this Arrested Development returning news is that it keeps growing, and expanding. Let me clarify: Originally, there were only intended to be 10 episodes, then when it was officially announced, they said there would be 13, now there’s going to be 14! And there’s rumours that a movie could be in the cards (for those that aren’t fans of the show, in the last episode of the show, it had such a fan-base that the writers tempted the audience with a little comment from Ron Howard, who narrates the show, in the finale scene when Maeby Fünke is trying to sell her families story… Ron Howard says something along the lines of “it might work as a movie”)…

The thing about Arrested Development is that it was ahead of it’s time: if it had been on when 30 Rock of The Office were, it would probably still be on today, but the problem was that it’s style of writing and it not being on every week (back when it was on Fox), because of it being pushed around due to sports and other shows conflicting with it’s time. Arrested Development is one of those shows that thrived after it was released on DVD because it gets you involved and you almost want to watch the series in a marathon kind of way, and Netflix realized this and when the 4th season is released, it will be possible to just marathon-watch and get your fill and enjoy the story, the way it should be enjoyed.

Some interesting facts about season 4

• Reruns of Arrested Development have been some of the most watched episodes on Netflix instant streaming, which is why Netflix decided to help produce new content for the series.
• Netflix outbid Showtime for the rights to house Arrested Development season 4.

Also, with watching the show in large blocks, viewers could keep up with the brilliantly placed recurring jokes, but there’s two kinds:

The first being a specific recurring line that different characters say:
“I’ve made a huge mistake”, “Steve Holt!!”, “Well, that was a freebie”,  and “Hey brother”

And the second being the visual jokes:
“Never-nudes”, “Tobias Funke’s way of talking”, and finally the chicken dance. Now, if you don’t know, the chicken dance is something that Gob continuously does to bother Michael (Bateman) and there’s two videos you can watch: Gob’s best chicken dances and the whole Bluth families chicken dances. I don’t like that someone put Back In Black in the background of the first video, but it’ll make do. The best part is at the end if you listen close you can hear Michael say: “has any in this family actually seen a chicken?”

But back to the actual episodes of season 4:

The only thing that might get confusing would be that each episode centers around a single person.. Although, it has been reassured that each episode links into the others, so I wouldn’t worry about confusion. I mean, if it doesn’t make sense, why wouldn’t they have fixed it before filming. I have a feeling it’s going to be really good, so I’m excited.
The thing that I think is fantastic is that the fourth season is going to be a stepping stone for the upcoming Arrested Development movie…
Jason Bateman on the movie continuation of the popular show and the upcoming season:
“Unfortunately, there’s probably gonna be about a year, maybe a year-and-a-half gap between the two, so you’ll end up having to watch these episodes again,” Bateman said. “It wasn’t perfectly scheduled, but we were just happy to get together as soon as we could.”

There’s no word on whether this upcoming season will jump-start the series and be continued with a 5th season, but it looks like Netflix has no such plans. So far, it looks like Season 4 then a movie, maybe, probably, hopefully, maybe.

So my schedule for watching will be season 1 through 3, 2 a night starting on May 4 then take one entire day to sleep and get rested and on May 26th at just after midnight, watch every episode straight.

But with each episode focused on one person at a time, does that mean you only see one family member at a time? Mitch Hurwitz said this in a statement:

“You don’t see them all together until you see the movie, [but] I can assure you that the characters are just as damaged, self-involved, and self-righteous as ever.”

Mitch Hurwitz was asked what his thoughts on an Arrested Development movie would be:

“I don’t know. I still wonder if a movie will work. For personal, selfish reasons, I would love to do a movie,” he said adding, “…the idea of going into a theater and watching the Bluth family on a massive screen, I’m not sure if that experience will work. I think it would be weird and unsettling, but who knows.”

That statement was from a while ago, before season 4 had been catered to supply a story for a movie, so it turns out, we might just see the Bluths on the big screen.

Hurwitz doesn’t consider season 4 to (technically) be season 4 – it’s act 1 of a three-act story that will be continued in a movie and perhaps additional seasons. Hurwitz also said that season 4 “asks a bunch of questions that then the movie answers.”

The scary part about all of this, is that the movie isn’t even in the works yet, and that the upcoming season and the movie seem very dependent on each other, Bateman explains: “One doesn’t really work without the other. They keep saying it’s a new season, but it is actually a bunch of episodes that set up the movie.”

But I recently read an article on ScreenRant about Arrested Development and what will happen after the 4th season comes out and I agree with their thoughts:

“One of three outcomes is likely to occur after season 4 is released. 1) Season 4 bombs (or does okay, but not crazy awesome) and the plans for a feature film are scrapped. 2) Season 4 is very successful and a feature film follow-up comes to fruition. 3) Season 4 is very successful and Hurwitz decides to just continue making seasons instead of a movie.”

Jason Bateman recently showed up on Kimmel and had this to say about the upcoming season:

“Each character gets their own episode, and all the action happens at the same time,” Bateman said. “So it can only really work on Netflix, where these episodes are released on the same day. So, like, you can stop my episode if you see G.O.B. run by on his Segway, you can stop mine, click over into his, watch where he’s going.”

Personally, one of the things I’m most excited about is that Michael Cera (who plays George Michael Bluth)  was enlisted onto the script writing team for this season, Hurwitz said:

“Michael is such a brilliant guy and such a great writer, and I really did bring him in because he’s such an open guy and he wanted to learn this other craft, and suddenly we were very dependent about Michael Cera being in the writers’ room … he understood this complex story and was pitching stories in character.”

The one thing that will for sure help the series hold true to it’s roots is that Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) will be the only character to be in every episode of the new season, which will hopefully let the story flow at least somewhat like it did originally.

There’s an article on Collider.com that talked about the cast reunion and how each of the first couple episodes focus primarily on one character at a time, so the bulk of the cast wasn’t together until about 2 weeks into filming. Mitch Hurwitz explained:

“The day a bigger group of the cast did get together really was amazing. We were in an old set and hearing some of those voices together. I think everyone involved was kind of dumbstruck by it. It really wasn’t supposed to happen in a way; shows don’t “come back.” And this was the moment we realized it had.”

He continued to explain how the upcoming Netflix episodes will relate to the movie:

“The episodes are an outgrowth of the design of what we hope will be the movie. They precede it. They function as an act one of a movie that we all want to do, but haven’t ‘sold’ yet. The episodes take the audience through the experiences of the characters since the family ‘fell apart’ and how they’re brought together to deal with their new problems.”

And whether or not the original set will be involved:

“One of the lesser known realities of the shrinking television [business] is that studios strip the walls and sell off the props when shows are cancelled. So many of the elements we’re revisiting have needed to be rebuilt or made. So some of the changes are subtle. For instance they discontinued the carpet we used in Lucille’s penthouse as well the one we cut Tobias’s moustache from. But we found a new paisley that works for both. Also the original Segway is out of production so we had to put some old pieces on a new one. But I’ve always been known for my awkward segues.”

And the real reason the show is being brought back:

“We all went back into this because of the devotion of the fans, and a desire to bring some fun to them — and to ourselves. It definitely did start out being somewhat daunting, but I think for all of us we just got back into the groove. Oh, and we have this new JarJar Bluth character so there’s no way anyone will be disappointed.”

That last part cracked me up, the obvious Star Wars reference (JarJar Binks being the reason Star Wars Episode 1 was terrible)… Funny guy.

Arrested Development Season 4 is set to be released on May 26th on Netflix, and all at once. Yes, you read that correctly, Netflix is releasing all 15 episodes (there’s a bonus episode that wasn’t listed above), at the exact same time: 12:01 in the morning of May 26th.

Fans of Arrested Development: thoughts on the show coming back? Do you think you’ll be able to wait a year or even two for a movie after binge watching the newest season once it comes out? Also, what do you supposed the movie could be about?

Let us know below!

4/12/2013 – 2:50 am

by James