Television Arrested Development

Judging by the comments I presume it would be advisable to watch the first 4 or 5 episodes in one sitting to grasp what's going on?
 
I don't think I could have handled that, I took them a day at a time. Now I feel as though I could watch a few back-to-back though.
 
akash02 said:
Judging by the comments I presume it would be advisable to watch the first 4 or 5 episodes in one sitting to grasp what's going on?
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You won't understand much till you are near the end, you are gonna have to watch it all again so doesn't really matter how much you watch at a time but I wouldn't leave it too long between episodes
 
5 is where it starts to get really good.

There's still a lot of stuff I haven't picked up on yet. Why is Tobias hiding behind the plant in the penthouse scene for example? Is that a joke?
 
I'd advise anyone who was starting them to watch what they could when they could; as the season goes on, more gets explained, and it's easier when they're fresher in your memory.

I've really enjoyed watching them through. Maebe's episode comes a lot clearer (such as her hiding in the house and penthouse and screaming).

I also saw a really good timeline explaining what all the character's were doing and when. Doesn't explain why George Michael spent most of his life at college though.

We know Ann turns 18 at the end of S3, but I'm pretty sure GM and Maebe were 16.

Link to the timeline: http://i0.wp.com/remarked.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-30-at-21.55.25.png
 
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I love this from the new season.
 
Gob's episodes are fantastic, established himself as the best character of the season (if not the show), I also loved George Michael's episodes, and how we'd been led to believe he'd become this big shot internet star, only to find he's made a woodblock. Great season, hope there's another one.
 
Did anyone see the chronological order ones? A fan cut them all together in chronological order. I watched the first two and they were actually really good. The penthouse scene and the scene after the boat are really good. Sadly they seem to have been taken down and the only place to get them is pirate bay, which is blocked by Virgin.
 
The ending of the season was a bit disappointing. I felt like they left us hanging after the whole GM, Rebel and Michael triangle was unravelled.
 
There's going to be another season? On Netflix? I knew they were making a movie but I didn't know it would be a continuation of the series.
 
Just finished watching the new season. Geez it's a confusing mess for the first 10 or so episodes. Didn't really enjoy it all bar the odd episode, and found myself surfing the net while watching most of the episodes. I think the biggest problem was Oscar/George - I had no idea who was who when they switched roles.

The last 5-6 episodes were very good though.
Wish they had just made it like a regular season.

Couldn't believe it was the same Lindsay - had to google it.
 
I think it's been alright. Not to the old standards, obviously, but still decent. I don't really see any point in all of the twists and reveals, though. They just seem to be overdone. It's a pissing comedy show, not a murder mystery.
 
Once I got over the format change and settled into it, I realized it was as brilliant as always. By the end of the season I was just loving it. Gearing up for a second viewing. I really hope they do a season 5 instead of a movie. It's so much better suited for the small screen and a cult following. I'd hate to see a movie 'wrap everything up'.
 
Mitch Hurwitz is doing a reddit AMA on Sunday. Might get some answers about a new season/movie then.
 
Doubt it. He's been doing loads of interviews recently and keeps giving the same answer. He seems very keen on a movie, but 20th Century Fox own the property so they can't shop it around other studios. He evened talked about how they saved certain stuff for the movie (like Franklin).

I hope it wins a few Emmys and we'll then get a movie.
 
Seems a dangerous strategy to leave the story the way the season ended without having nailed-down the film to tell the next part of it. Even if they can get the film off the ground, then there's every chance that it'd take ages to get organised. There was already enough of a difference in the appearance of the actors from the original series (especially when they were doing the scenes after Lucille tried to escape in the series finale), but if they leave concluding the story from season four too long then they could have bigger problems to work out than Portia having short hair, the kids being in their twenties or David Cross looking chubby.

Remember how much time was lost from Red Dwarf in chasing the dream of making a film (so much so they just abandoned the cliff-hanger from series 8 when they finally returned to TV) - I'd hate that to happen in this case, but if after the years of talking about doing a film they still haven't got the green-light (even with Ron Howard on board) then it's a little worrying.

Hopefully Netflix have been happy with the fourth season, enough so that they might at least have that avenue to go down again if they can't get a film off the ground.
 
Holy shit... I was watching an episode of Arrested Development today, and as Buster was staring at his hook, I suddenly realized: It's about the Lannisters :eek:
 
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1gj9mt/i_am_mitch_hurwitz_creator_of_arrested/

Mitch Hurwitz answering questions from fans about the show. He remarks that "For the 5th season, it would DEFINITELY be about the family all together. That was always the design.". Sounds like a fifth season could be on the cards and it will reunite the family, which is obviously what made it a classic. A movie is not decided by any means.
 
I really enjoyed the 4th series once it got going properly. It did seem to take a long time to get going though. And the amount of exposition at times tested my patience.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
I really enjoyed the 4th series once it got going properly. It did seem to take a long time to get going though. And the amount of exposition at times tested my patience.
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The thing is, AD has always used foreshadowing to great effect, and all the episodes were over the same timespan. So you'd see the setup to a joke (or a joke itself), and not see the rest of it until you go back (or forwards) in time. Quite tricky to follow, but as soon as I started watching them again, I noticed GM say in the very first episode: "I dunno, you do a something search of your name and...". Of course we later found out that Google was being censored.

Great season all in all. Been nicer to have more of the cast together for more, but it's immeasurably better than nothing, and I hope they do more.
 
I think they went about it the right approach, considering they had an 8 year gap to fill in. It was certainly overly confusing at times but I think it would've been worse if they were switching between characters every episode instead of focusing on them individually.

I hope they make a 5th, I reckon it'd be great, especially if they go back to the old format, which they can.
 
I finished watching it a couple of days ago and the main criticism is that the George Snr storyline was so dull. It seemed a shame to waste Jeffrey Tambor, given that he had a fair amount of screen time, that part of the series did very little for me.
 
I really liked the new approach once I'd gotten used to it, though I agree it was a mistake to have that George Snr ep so soon. It's a new & inventive way of writing and releasing a sitcom, so I'm not too worried that it didn't stick to the tried and trusted "just make us laugh" contained structure. They tried a new thing, there were always going to be some bumps & dissatisfactions along the way. I think they'll probably revert back for a 5th, and a Movie would too obviously. The Fakeblock storyline was a good example of how this approach worked for me, ANUSTART too to a lesser degree. Though there were certainly some that didn't.
 
Right so....after months of promising to start watching this I stuck on the first episode at 9pm. I'm still fecking glued to it almost 5 hours later. I can't get away from watching the next episode.

Absolutely priceless comedy. So well written, and so many pieces of genius.

I love how they're so self absorbed and narcissistic, making them completely clueless to their general surroundings (most of the time). For example, how oblivious they are to people of South American / Latin origin, treating it as if everyone South of the border were identity-less. Whether it's geographical, or a severe lack of knowledge of the language it really does present blind ignorance in humor. Thinking Portugal was in South America and assuming the word 'hermano' was a bloke's name :lol:

There are some really clever moral undertows dealing with race, sexuality, religion, family etc.
 
I'm assuming the cartoon Archer is a spin-off of this, with the Mother practically being the cartoon version of Archer's mother.

I'm too lazy to read this thread. Please excuse me repeating.
 
It's not really a spin-off, it just has similarities. The characters are equally self-centred. Jeffrey Tambor plays a role, Jessica Walter is Archer's mum, Judy Greer plays the assistant (again) etc.

It's well worth watching once AD is finished.
 
Even David Cross (Tobias) does a voice during the three episodes of 'Heart of Archness', he's Noah! (just re-watched those episodes last night, they're hilarious :lol:)

Jessica Walter indeed plays a character with the same traits as Lucille from AD, but as Liam said, it's not a spin-off, though there are similarities between the shows, notably in how they're written. The creator of Archer described his show as "James Bond meets Arrested Development" by the way.

I actually fell in love with Archer first and found out that people that like one of the shows usually like the other, which pushed me to check out AD. Both excellent shows.
 
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