Arrested Development – Season One

Review By: Staff

Arrested Development may in fact be the most original, inventive, entertaining comedy series that has ever aired on broadcast television. One may go as far as to say that it ranks up there with the classic, hall of fame sitcoms such as All In the Family, Cheers, M*A*S*H, and Seinfeld.

Save one minor mishap the show was virtually flawless, that one minor flaw was simple: nobody watched it. If nobody watches a show, the show is invariably deemed “underperforming”, and as much as any network executive may like it, this dreaded characterization usually forces the networks hand to pull the show from the rotating schedule. This was a definitive shame, for its brilliance is proclaimed to an even greater degree in the repeated viewings of the series on DVD.

The show’s premise relies around the Bluth family, which consists of the do good, honest Michael (Jason Bateman, Starsky & Hutch, The Break-Up), who when his father George (Jeffrey Tambor, Meet Joe Black, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) is imprisoned for money laundering/light treason he must keep his crazy self-involved family together. His older brother Gob (pronounced Job, as in the Biblical name, here played by Will Arnett, Monster-In-Law, RV) is a failing magician and ladies man who is dating a Spanish telenova star. His twin sister Lindsay (Portia de Rossi, Ally McBeal, Cursed) is married to recently defamed psychiatrist Tobias (David Cross, Mr. Show, School For Scoundrels) and both are uninvolved parents to problem child Maeby (Alia Shawkat, Deck the Halls). Michael’s son George Michael (Michael Cera, Confessions of A Dangerous Mind) is a sweet but insecure boy who is in love with his cousin Maeby.

Included in the family are Michael’s ostentatious mother Lucille (Jessica Walter, PCU, Slums of Beverly Hills) and her youngest son, Michael’s slower brother Buster (Tony Hale, RV, Stranger Than Fiction). A truly unique family.

A possible explanation for the lack of viewer-ship is that Arrested Development deliberately attempts to break the normative conventions of the sitcom. Firstly, it is shot on a digital documentary style of cinema verite (which is a French term for using naturalistic means and the application of documentary filming to scripted storytelling), it does not use the multi-camera stage format, with laugh track included that is so prevalent in sitcoms. Secondly, it uses an enormous cast (think Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer, that is it) and somehow manages to utilize every character effectively while allowing every character and guest character in each episode to be distinct. Thirdly, it does not waste one moment, a joke is always being fired at the viewer in a machine gun format. The jokes are quick, subversive, and usually very subtle. Where most other sitcoms will take the time to prepare and set up a joke, Arrested Development lands a joke as the next joke is getting prepared and building. All of these sitcom perforations are mad possible by the ingenuity of creator Mitch Hurwitz, the writing of ...