I watched the first three seasons of Arrested Development the old fashioned way. I watched it when FOX broadcast Arrested Development on TV from 2003 through 2006. So when Netflix released the fourth season a little over seven years later in 2013, I was excited, but knew that I could not simply resume watching Arrested Development, but would have to rewatch the first three seasons because I would remember nothing. I was a little concerned that Arrested Development would not hold up as well on second viewing in comparison to how favorably I remembered the show so I delayed revisiting it. A little under four years after the release of the fourth season on Netflix, I was finally ready to return to the Bluth family.
Arrested Development’s first two seasons were still howlingly funny and felt like my five stars rating on Netflix was still accurate. The third season was still hilarious, but began to lose steam, and I would give it four stars. I rewatched all three seasons with a sense of urgency and pleasure, but watching the fourth season started out feeling like a mistake and only begrudgingly improved after the third episode of season four. If the first three seasons were excellent, and Arrested Development still got cancelled, then the fourth season should have created a rift in the space-time continuum, and Arrested Development should never have existed. I can’t believe that there will be a fifth season, and unfortunately because I am a completist, I will watch it. Arrested Development did have some delicious additions: Kristen Wiig and Tommy Tune.
The fourth season of Arrested Development is a completely different show with similar characters and the same actors. Arrested Development pulled a final season of the original Dark Shadows. I think that the fourth season is more appealing the more that you forget about the first three seasons. So why did I think that the fourth season was a barely watchable disaster? First, Arrested Development’s visual style felt incredibly different-they definitely used different quality cameras, and it created a subtle dissonance that jarred the transition. Second, the episodes are devoted to a single member of the Bluth family instead of every member of the family appearing throughout the episode to interact with each other, which means there are numerous new characters and less chemistry.
Third, because of the change in episode formatting, the story is not told in an overall chronological way, but unlike This Is Us, without a chart, it is hard to figure out when things are happening from episode to episode. In previous seasons when this happened, the overall story was chronological, but as characters discovered certain facts, brief flashbacks would be replayed to reveal what was really happening. It made sense, and it was funny. While the new formatting is ambitious and interesting, by the end, I had two choices: rewatch season four or go to the Arrested Development Wiki to figure out what happened. I could barely watch each episode of season four without questioning all my life decisions so guess what I chose.
Fourth, some characters seem completely different (Michael, George Michael, George, Oscar) and others gradually change in a direction that I do not prefer (Lucille). Without Tobias, Lindsay, Gob, Buster and Maeby, Arrested Development’s fourth season would be unwatchable. For example, is George’s transformation supposed to be a riff on Jeffrey Tambor’s then future role in Transparent? I want Lucille to be THE bitch! I want her to randomly end up on a show with Will & Grace’s Karen while Emily Gilmore smoothly cusses them out and tries to get them right with God. You’re welcome! Sure Michael is a Bluth, but he was the Marilyn Munster of the Bluths. And why DID he pose like that? What is happening? Does Arrested Development not understand why we come here.
Fifth, some jokes don’t age well. Now we consider it rape if someone pretends to be someone else to sleep with someone else. Sixth, most shows are increasing diversity, which is great, but with Arrested Development’s fourth season, it felt like they had a score card for a certain amount of each demographic. For example, the addition of black extras felt oddly forced and self-conscious in the first episode as opposed to being in line with Arrested Development’s usual humor. Seventh, at the end of Arrested Development’s previous seasons, most of the storylines get resolved, but by the end of the fourth season, there are numerous unanswered questions: who sabotaged Gob’s act, why is George acting differently, what is going on with Lucille 2. Good thing that I don’t care.
Eighth, Michael Cera’s face now annoys me, which is mean and unfair, but it does. I don’t hate him. I’m not saying that he does not have talent. I irrationally began to tire of his face around Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and I think that my condition has only exacerbated. I also don’t think that it helps that not only does everyone else basically look the same, but many of the actors that he interacts with in the fourth season look better in that weird entertainer vortex where people get smoother, tanner and fitter. Unlike Tony Hale and David Cross, he does not look the same, he looks worse, and I know that is part of the joke, but his character is not endearing enough for me to NOT notice. His final scene with his father, though somewhat warranted, made me hate him. I may be biracial, but I am black. You do NOT do that to an elder unless you’re defending yourself, and even then, escape. He is the worst Bluth because he should know better. Ugh.
Ninth, it probably did not help that I was wrapping up This Is Us when I began the fourth season of Arrested Development, but there is too much Ron Howard. I know that he has always been the narrator, but now he is a character. I hate when authors appear as a character in their fictional books (Douglas Coupland and Stephen King), and I hate this.
Arrested Development’s fourth season proves that you can never go home, but if you do, it will be an excruciating experience. Just keep rewatching the first three seasons of Arrested Development while I wait to suffer through the upcoming fifth.