The fourth and fifth seasons of Arrested Development often feel like real-time psychological surveys of the show’s fan base, centered on one simple question: Why do you even want more Arrested Development? The fourth season, which launched in 2013, was an ambitious mess. Since the show’s cast members had all gone on to greater levels of fame in the wake of the original three seasons’ groundbreaking run (between 2003 and 2006), creator Mitchell Hurwitz turned his inability to get all nine of them in the same place at the same time into a weird asset. Rating: 3 out of 5 vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark The original cut of that season featured 15 episodes of varying length, each focused on a new member of the Bluth family, which dovetailed in exasperating and exhilarating ways the deeper into the season the show got. It was perhaps the first true experiment in how streaming on a service like Netflix could change a TV show, a season-length episode of Arrested Development that didn’t always work but was always striving for something. Hurwitz has since recut the season into a 22-episode, more conventional version of itself that is less taxing to watch but also less impressive. (The originals are still available, just hidden.) And now comes season five, which aims to be a faithful recreation of what Arrested was. Hurwitz had access to most of the cast for all 16 of its episodes (eight of which launched Tuesday, May 29, with the other eight following sometime in the near-ish future), so the storytelling is much closer to the original series. But trying to recreate the past is almost always impossible, as every TV revival other than Twin Peaks: The Return has been forced to grapple with. And that leaves Arrested season five feeling half finished. It’s fun in places and labored in others, sometimes in the same scene. So let’s break it down into its best, worst, and weirdest attributes. Warning: Spoilers for all eight episodes that launched Tuesday follow. Good: the whole cast is here, and they haven’t missed a step Arrested Development stood apart from most TV comedies for many reasons when it debuted in the 2000s. Its interest in rotting family legacies offered a way to talk about the George W. Bush era without talking about it directly, its writing combined elements of British farce and family sitcom cynicism into a toxically addictive stew, and its visuals (established by Infinity War directors Joe and Anthony Russo in the show’s pilot!) played around with the style of mockumentaries without ever plunging over the edge into full faux-documentary. But really, the reason so many of us loved Arrested Development so much stemmed from how ably it assembled one of the best comedic ensembles ever put on American television — nine whole actors, each pitch perfect — then let them bounce off each other in ever-shifting combinations and permutations. Even the two kids (Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat) were hilarious. If there’s one arena in which season five definitively improves on season four, then, it’s in returning these characters into one another’s orbits. There are a few players who aren’t as present. Tony Hale (Buster) sits out several episodes (presumably to accommodate his shooting schedule on the many other things he does), while the retired Portia de Rossi (Lindsay) is in far less of the season than you might want her to be, considering much of the season’s plot revolves around electing her to Congress. But for the most part, these are the characters you loved, played as well as they ever were. Some are even better. Now that Shawkat is a much more experienced actor, she’s turned Maeby Funke into a two-bit con artist as adept as any in the Bluth family, and Will Arnett has somehow become even more pathetic as oldest brother Gob, even if the storytelling sometimes lets him down. And then you have players like Jessica Walter (Lucille) and Jason Bateman (Michael) and Cera (George Michael) — all still perfectly calibrated. Really, only David Cross’s Tobias ultimately doesn’t work, and that’s more to do with how little reason the character has to stick around at this point in the story, nothing to do with Cross’s performance. Oh, right, and there’s Jeffrey Tambor too. Bad: the whole cast is here — and that includes a number of people who make the show harder to watch The press tour for season four centered on the sheer improbable excitement of having a beloved show, taken before its time, back on television, with a steady backup of Hurwitz’s promise that he was trying to do something new with the show. The press tour for season five has involved plenty of questions about how Tambor was fired from Amazon’s Transparent, a series for which he won two Emmys, after an investigation into accusations of sexual harassment against him. As part of his attempt at damage control, Tambor admitted in a Hollywood Reporter profile to a time when he berated Walter on the set of Arrested, which came up in a New York Times interview that rapidly went off the rails (and that’s me being charitable). Both Tambor’s misconduct and the actions of the various men in the show’s cast who worked to burnish his reputation in interviews have cast a pall over the season for many. The show is better able to overcome this than you might expect, since it literally depicts Tambor’s character, George, as an anchor holding the Bluth family down at one point, but it’s still going to be hard for plenty of viewers to watch. The series relies on light, effervescent clowning that skews our warped, modern, corporate-obsessed world through a goofy sitcom prism. That requires reality intruding on the proceedings as little as possible, except for when Hurwitz and company want it to intrude. Thus, Tambor’s actions make it harder to escape into the series, something Matt Zoller Seitz calls “cultural vandalism.” Maybe you won’t think about this when watching his scenes, and that’s fine. Everybody consumes media differently.<doc-sep>Netflix’s revival of Arrested Development may have had a mixed reception from critics and fans, but the dysfunctional Bluth family isn’t done yet. Five years after the premiere of the much-anticipated fourth season, Arrested Development is back for season five — or rather, the first eight episodes of the season, with more to follow later this year. On the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we’re joined by TechCrunch’s Lucas Matney to discuss our thoughts on the show. For many fans, this new season may feel like a return to form. Not everything works — there’s still some awkward editing and greenscreen — but it’s back to the format of the show’s classic episodes, with lots more delightful bickering between characters like Michael (Jason Bateman), George Michael (Michael Cera), Gob (Will Arnett), Maeby (Alia Shawkat) and Lucille (Jessica Walter). Unfortunately, it’s tough to talk about the show’s quality without also acknowledging a recent group interview with The New York Times, where actor Jeffrey Tambor was asked about yelling at Walter, who apparently started crying while a number of the male cast members seemed to defend Tambor’s behavior. They’ve since apologized, but we still wrestle with how the controversy changes our perception of the show. We also talk about another big piece of streaming news, namely Amazon’s decision to revive The Expanse after it was canceled by Syfy. You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You also can send us feedback directly.<doc-sep>Now the story of a classic sitcom that lost its mojo, and the audience that had no choice but to keep coming back to see if it had gotten its act together again. It’s “Arrested Development,” and I can report that the fifth season — whose first eight episodes arrive on Netflix on Tuesday — eventually re-approaches the manic pleasures of the show’s heyday. Unfortunately, it takes its time getting to that point, and it doesn’t stay long. The original series, which ran from 2003 to 2006 on Fox, was a comedy miracle, capturing the oblivious entitlement of the wealthy Bluth family with elaborate farce plots and enough inspired coinages to fill a vault. Netflix resurrected it in 2013. But because the cast members could only commit to brief shooting schedules — and because no one was quite sure what this newfangled “streaming TV” stuff would look like — the creator, Mitchell Hurwitz, devised an origami-folded fourth season, with a hopscotching timeline and episodes built around individual characters.<doc-sep>There’s something perfect about the fact that season 5 of “Arrested Development” picks up almost immediately where season 4 left off as if no time has passed at all, alternately ignoring and winking at the fact that its cast has aged. After all (narrator voice): it’s “Arrested Development.” Opting to stick with the still unfolding season 4 stories instead of flashing right by them is a gutsy choice that mostly pays off. Fans will be relieved to know that season 5 makes a point of bringing the Bluth family back together after obvious scheduling issues with the cast for season 4 – the first on Netflix after almost a decade off the air – necessitated that most of their storylines were separated. Season 4 was a convoluted mess, marooning each character in their own myopic spirals when so much of the original series’ spark came from them bouncing off each other. It was so controversial, in fact, that creator Mitch Hurwitz went so far as to recut the entire thing into more shorter episodes that are meant to evoke the ebullience of the original series. (The “remix” is currently available on Netflix as the default season 4 option; the original cut is buried deep under the “trailers and more” tab.) To ts credit, season 5 seems to know what went wrong before and works hard to correct it. The quota of celebrity guest stars is significantly down, making the ones that do pop up count that much more. Plots that never quite worked on season 4 – like George Senior (Jeffrey Tambor) accidentally taking too much estrogen and Tobias (David Cross) staging a “Fantastic 4” musical – get dropped. Stronger stories – like Michael (Jason Bateman) and George Michael (Michael Cera) accidentally dating the same woman (Isla Fisher) – get more support. And while Lindsay’s quest for validation through political fearmongering features surprisingly little of Lindsay herself (de Rossi is the only one who appears to have been shot separately more often than not), her congressional campaign is exactly the kind of framing device that brings out the most ridiculous sides of her family. The same holds true for the rare combination of Tobias and Lucille (Jessica Walter) when he briefly becomes her therapist; in these scenes, there’s hardly a line of Lucille’s that Walter doesn’t deliver with the pitch perfect amount of acid. (As for her favorite son Buster, I can’t say much lest I ruin his storyline completely, but rest assured that Tony Hale’s wide-eyed, weirdo energy remains a bright spot as per always.) Every revival and reboot has the shadow of expectations looming overhead, making the most pressing question whether or not it can live up to the original. And “Arrested”’s shadow is darker than most thanks to allegations of sexual harassment from Tambor’s “Transparent” trans costars and verbal abuse from several, including Walter. So I can’t lie: of course that affected how I saw the show. It’s just not as much fun to watch George Senior and Lucille bicker knowing how poisonous that dynamic became when Tambor apparently took it out on Walter. Not everything, despite the show’s premise, can snap right back into place as if nothing ever happened. So from where I’m sitting, it’s telling that some of the best material season 5 has to offer comes from storylines that let the characters change even just a little. While season 4 kept George Michael and Maeby (Alia Shawkat) acting about the same as they ever had as teenagers, season 5 acknowledges that they’re now at least approximately adults. George Michael – who ended season 4 by punching his father in the face – gains enough actual confidence to make him more evenly matched with Maeby, whose newest long con lets Shawkat be her screwball best. It’s both jarring and fun to see them now complain about their family over drinks, even more so to hear the usually docile George Michael mutter that someone’s “such a stupid asshole.” One of the season’s best surprises comes from Gob (Will Arnett), always the most intense tryhard in a family full of them. This time, however, he’s spiraling as he grapples with his feelings for Tony Wonder (Ben Stiller), the magician who reminded him he has a heart by breaking it. I already knew how good Arnett is at selling a manic kind of existential dread (see: “BoJack Horseman”), but it’s still impressive to see him find some genuine pathos in between “Arrested”‘s most bonkers beats. Granted, these new dynamics feel the least in line with the original series than any of the others, so maybe the most diehard “Arrested” fans will balk. But for me, seeing the Bluths try something a little new – even when they inevitably and spectacularly fail – is way more fun than their retreads of seasons past. TV Review: “Arrested Development” Season 5 Comedy series (First half of the season is 8 episodes, 7 reviewed): Netflix, Tues. May 29 Executive producers Mitchell Hurwitz, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jim Vallely and Richie Rosenstock. CAST: Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, Portia de Rossi, David Cross and Alia Shawkat.<doc-sep>
“I’ve made a huge mistake.” It may have been a while since you’ve heard GOB’s famous catch phrase, but there’s more where that came from. Arrested Development Season 5 dropped today on Netflix. Creator Mitch Hurwitz promised that this season would be more in keeping with the original three seasons of Arrested Development, which aired from 2003 to 2006. But that might not be the only thing keeping viewers from reliving the delight of the original seasons. Here’s how the story goes: When the original three seasons aired on Fox in the early aughts, the show failed to get enough viewership and the series was cancelled. However, a cult following emerged that only grew stronger as the show was picked up by various streaming services. Netflix signed a deal in 2013 to bring back Arrested Development for a fourth season, ten years after the series premiere aired on Fox. While it was a valiant effort, the creators struggled to get the large band of cast members, many of whom had risen to new levels of fame, in a single location at once. This made for a disjointed and confusing season 4, with each episode dedicated to a different character’s story. In short, it wasn’t the Arrested Development we had spent 10 years loving. Hurwitz went back to the drawing board on season four recently, ‘remixing’ the edits to transform the season into something more cohesive. And today, Season 5 lands on Netflix. But even with the remix, the series still faces a huge publicity problem. About a week ago, the cast of Arrested Development sat down with The New York Times for an interview as part of the show’s press tour. In the interview, the cast is asked about allegations against Jeffrey Tambor (George Bluth Sr.) on the set of Transparent, as well as an incident where Tambor admitted to lashing out at Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth) in a Hollywood Reporter interview. If you haven’t read the interview, I suggest you do so now. As Jessica Walter explains through tears that she’s never been treated in sixty years of working the way that Tambor treated her, her male costars (most notably Jason Bateman) went on to defend Tambor and excuse his behavior. Needless to say, this created a huge backlash and drove Netflix to cancel all appearances on the cast’s UK press tour. Bateman, alongside Tony Hale and David Cross, later apologized for what they said in the interview.