Arrested Development Season 4 Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Arrested Development Season 4
Year: 2013
Creator: Mitchell Hurwitz
Country: US
Language: English 

Ah, Arrested Development. Admittedly I had only watched a couple of episodes of Season 3 during its original run from 2003-2006, I didn't even know Buster lost his hand until I re-watched the series on Netflix just over a year ago. It was upon hearing that a new season was in production that I decided to binge watch each season; this took me a week to accomplish. I just binge watched Season 4 over a period of three days and here are my thoughts.

The plot involves the antics of the wildly dysfunctional Bluth family; Michael (Jason Bateman), George Michael (Michael Cera), Maeby (Alia Shawkat), Lindsay (Porta De Rossi), Lucille (Jessica Walter), George Bluth Sr. (Jeffery Tambor), Gob (Will Arnett), Buster (Tony Hale) and Tobias (David Cross). Each episode of Season 4 focuses on the plights of a different character of the Bluth family, all intertwining with each other.

When Arrested Development originally aired from 2003-2006 on Fox it was met with great praise by critics, but not enough people tuned into the show to watch it and therefore it would be unceremoniously cancelled. Soon after it was cancelled it gained a cult following larger than most television shows that are still on air. There was great demand for another season and eventually, a decade after its birth, online streaming powerhouse Netflix provided. Season 4 has an unusual Rashomon-like narrative structure; it's different from the original series, which was pretty straight forward, but it's refreshing as well.

The show is very funny, but like the latest Seasons of Matt Groening's The Simpsons it's very self referential. Meaning that to get most of the jokes, especially the ones involving Steve Holt and that girl Gob wants to marry, you have to already be a fan of the series and have seen all three seasons before. With Season 4 you can't be new to Arrested Development. It also seems that the characters are a bit watered down. In Seasons 1-3 each character was very complex and had the audience's sympathy. In this Season each character is quite shallow, throughout the series the writers have wanted you to be on the side of Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), but now he comes off as far too creepy to be likeable. However despite some faults, it is still an entertaining show that will please many of its diehard fans.

In conclusion, though Season 4 of Arrested Development was a joy to unravel, when I decide to re-watch the show again I think I'll skip this Season. While it's not bad, it certainly didn't re-capture the tone of the original series and didn't make any great attempts at making new jokes. Though I still have to give credit to it for being one of the smarter comedies on television. 3/5