The New Arrested Development Season (or A Seriously "Arrested Development")

Today's film? Well... not a film, but the new episodes of

Arrested Development 

I solemnly swear to give nothing away! 

So, you may have been wondering why I haven't posted in a while. Here's the reason: Arrested Developments' new season on Netflix. 

I'll begin by saying how much I truly loved this show. I sat and watched it for hours and hours, cracking up consistently through its, at the time unfairly, short stint. (I've even quoted one of my favorite lines in a previous blog post ;) Recently, Netflix took the series and added a fourth season with the promise of a movie/mini-series to go along with it. After watching all fifteen of the new episodes, all I can say is that I wish I hadn't.

I was seriously disappointed by the new season and I will tell you why while doing my best not to give anything away. I think there were three main reasons it didn't work for me: 1) it became an ode to Ron Howard, and honestly, I only liked him in a narrating capacity, 2) the timeline was very confusing and 3) not a single character had a single redeeming quality. In the original series, you could always rely on Michael or George Michael to at least try to do the right thing and/or keep the family together. In the new series, you could rely on no one. The entirety of the Bluth family became a collectively terrible person in the future and it was no longer fun to watch. I am quite serious when I say I only laughed four times throughout the new season. Mostly, I felt aggravated.

I did still enjoy Gob for the most part as his plot line was the most coherent and humorous. They use a specific song particularly well the first few times... I just wished the writers had created new quirks and jokes for the characters rather than overplayed the already overplayed jokes of the original series. I give the new season a 6/10 because of how much I wanted to love it. It was a bit of an arrested development, if you forgive the pun, that could have been so much better had the writers simply tried. The show is tired and it should have remained a mighty, albeit short-seasoned, giant. I remain sad and disappointed.