The first three seasons of Arrested Development which aired on Fox were comedy gold. Those seasons made the show one of the best comedies ever. Season four was a revival of the series that aired on Netflix. In some ways, it extended the original story and in some ways, it told a new story, and it is hard to tell which of those the writers wanted to do. What also complicated the season is that the story was told out of order. Basically, each episode was devoted to a specific character to bring you up to speed on what happened to that character from the time the original show ended up to the present. And essentially you would see one character's version of events in one episode and another character's version of events in a different episode. So, jokes would be set up in one episode and paid off one or two episodes down the line. Once we get caught up with each character, then the remaining episodes are devoted to just a couple of storylines that bring every character together.
The main story involves the lead-up to Newport Beach's Cinco de Cuatro and the events that lead each of the characters there. The jokes are updated to the present day to include references to building a wall (which goes about as well as it did in real life) and spoofing the superhero movie craze. Of course, Ron Howard's great narration is also included. All of the main cast members return to the show, and several of the recurring cast members from the show's original run, including Henry Winkler, Ed Beagly Jr., Judy Greer, and Liza Minnelli (among others), and new guest stars including Isla Fisher, John Krasinski, and Seth Rogen make appearances during the season.
The DVD set has just the episodes. No extras (which is definitely disappointing). Overall, the season gets shit on a lot, but I think that is unfair. It had a lot of funny moments, but they were definitely more spaced apart than they were during the original run of the series when I found myself laughing pretty much the entire half hour during every episode. I think they would have been better off just doing a time jump and writing the series more like how the original episodes were written. And, I think they should have used the fact that they could actually swear on Netflix instead of bleeping out the swear words like they did when the show was on Fox. That said, it is still worth watching.
The main story involves the lead-up to Newport Beach's Cinco de Cuatro and the events that lead each of the characters there. The jokes are updated to the present day to include references to building a wall (which goes about as well as it did in real life) and spoofing the superhero movie craze. Of course, Ron Howard's great narration is also included. All of the main cast members return to the show, and several of the recurring cast members from the show's original run, including Henry Winkler, Ed Beagly Jr., Judy Greer, and Liza Minnelli (among others), and new guest stars including Isla Fisher, John Krasinski, and Seth Rogen make appearances during the season.
The DVD set has just the episodes. No extras (which is definitely disappointing). Overall, the season gets shit on a lot, but I think that is unfair. It had a lot of funny moments, but they were definitely more spaced apart than they were during the original run of the series when I found myself laughing pretty much the entire half hour during every episode. I think they would have been better off just doing a time jump and writing the series more like how the original episodes were written. And, I think they should have used the fact that they could actually swear on Netflix instead of bleeping out the swear words like they did when the show was on Fox. That said, it is still worth watching.
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