“And now the story of a TV show that was ahead of its time. Who’s life was all too short, only to receive post-mortem acclaim—the likes of which made the folks at Netflix sit up and take notice.”
Roughly five years ago, the long awaited return of the dysfunctional Bluth family had fans chomping at the bit to see what happened to the gang after Michael (Jason Bateman) abandoned ship (quite literally) and decided to leave the family – that caused him so much stress – to fend for themselves. The story picks up right where it ended, seven years earlier… okay… well… kinda. You see the original airing of season 4 was not only the return of Tobias (David Cross), Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), Mayeb (Alia Shawkat), George Michael (Michael Cera), Buster (Tony Hale), Gob (Will Arnett), George Sn. (Jeffrey Tambor), and Lucille (Jessica Walter), but it was also the debút of an entirely new format for the show.
In the years between the original airing/canceling of the show, just about every actor part of the ensemble cast went on to do major film and television projects in Hollywood. Don’t believe me? Take a quick IMDb stroll through practically any member of the Bluth (or by extension, Fünke) family and you will see more critical acclaim then you can shake your chicken bone at! So, when it came time to plan out just exactly what season 4 would be, and just exactly how they were going to tell the story, the production team at Netflix had to play an unfortunate game of “schedule the stars.” In an effort to maximize the extremely limited and sporadic schedules, they opted for a shorter 15 episode season, with episodes running up to 38 minutes in length—each episode focusing on one member of the family.
This new approach was met with some push back. However, since the show was now on Netflix, the entire season was able to be released at the same time, so some of the grumblings faded away as the day-long binge culminated in a generally satisfied fan-base. The conclusion of the story left us with some unanswered questions and the obvious clamoring for “what happens next?!”
JUMP CUT – May 1, 2018
Just a few short weeks from the 5 year anniversary of season 4 we get an announcement that AD will be getting a bit of a remix. And then, as if like manna from TV-Streaming Heaven, 3 days later we have a totally re-cut version of season 4, edited to look, feel, and sound (thanks Ron) like seasons 1-3. Show creator Michael Hurwitz made the decision to re-master the season (now titled – Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences) to help with cohesion in story-telling. Stating that the new version will, “shuffle the content from 15 individualized stories into 22 interwoven stories the length of the original series.”
The update did succeed in bringing the story back to it’s roots, although not seamlessly. Some of the reshoots and blue screen effects felt obvious, but not in the typical “fourth-wall-breaking” way. The lengthening of the season has also brought about some contractual issues with the stars, who are looking to be compensated for the new episodes. On the plus side, the over-arching storytelling was much easier to follow when told in a chronological way, and the cameos were a total riot (ex. John Krasinski, Terry Crews, Andy Richter, Ed Helmes, and Ben Stiller just to name a few). It took me the better part of 2 days to get through the whole season, but I had an absolute blast!
The original airing of this season would have seen a lower rating from me, but this remix gets every bit of a 9/10!
It’s a must-watch for any AD fans. And if you haven’t yet “hopped on” the bandwagon, now is the time to start… because the final countdown to season 5 is on as it airs just a couple of weeks from now on May 29th—only on Netflix. I don’t know about you, but I am ready to see some MAGIC!
Andrew Sale
Master of One
Clocking in at over 800 million seconds old (be impressed), Andrew is a Graphic Artist, Communications Director, and lover of Ninja Turtles & Star Wars. He is formally trained in the Fine Arts, with special interest in shade drawing realism. He has spent the last 15 years focusing on Brand messaging and corporate / organizational identity along with the majority of his life honing in on his own personal style. Even though he loves to create his own pieces of art, it's even more fun to collect and support other really incredible artists! If you look around his studio (or home for that matter) you won’t see much of his own stuff!