Arrested Development’s Attempt to Transcend Genres and Mediums

I finished Arrested Development Season Four and these are my thoughts on it. 

What Went Right

The Story Arch

How effective the story arch was at creating humor is another issue, and one I’ll get to later—for a second I want to just dwell on the arch itself. This was perhaps one of the most intricate plots ever crafted, and certainly in “television”. I keep expecting to run across a flowchart or something to explain it all, and I haven’t yet (someone link me if you know of one). I’m not sure that this isn’t because no one can wrap their head around it. It is convoluted, but I think it all checks out. I haven’t come up with a single loose end or “but how did he…?” yet, and maybe once I get a few days away from this thing I will, but I think we need to take a step back from legacy of the original trilogy

and realize that Season Four was leagues beyond the complexity of the first three seasons. And leagues beyond the complexity of just about every narrative I can think of. It had the highest twist-per-minute of anything I've ever seen. In this regard it comfortably rests among other works of media that I am amazed a human brain came up with. It’s so far beyond what could have ever been done in the original series because…

Let the Great Experiment Begin!

Mitch Hurwitz, the creator of Arrested Development, did a lovely AMA on Reddit where he wrote very positively of the creative freedom given to him by Netflix. But most interesting to me of all his comments was this: 

If you look at the transition from radio to television, the first 15-20 years were basically just radio shows on TV. I didn't want to just do a series on Netflix, I wanted to see what the form would allow. And they [Netflix] dug that idea.

To me, this at least gives Season Four a purpose, something I think people could accuse it of not having. It’s easy to accuse S4 of putting a damper on the original trilogy’s legacy, and being unnecessary, but this was not a cash-grabbing reunion tour. This was a serious attempt at progressing a medium. S4 was intentionally different from S1-3 because it was a fundamentally different way of presenting film. And it's an interesting way, this hyper-narrative episodic format, but one that needs some refinement. Will the already-legendary comedy someday be seen as having a pioneering second act that set the course for a hybrid medium? Maybe, maybe not. If it is, it probably (hopefully) won’t be seen as a crowning achievement of the hybrid-genre, but it could be incredibly influential (and probably forever controversial).

What Went Wrong

The Story Arch

The problem with the insanely intricate story arch was that it wasn’t actually funny. Too many times you’d get the big reveal about a previous event (a reveal you didn’t know was there to be had) and the reaction was “aaaaaAAAAaaahhh”. The irony was so pervasive that it stopped being surprising and became a series of one-ups against the previous reveals. It was so much that instead of laughing at it, you had to sit there for five seconds, intentionally remember what previous event was being referenced, remember the circumstances for said event, and then get the joke—and the moment had passed, and half of the time there had already been another reveal, and you were behind in your critical thinking. It played out like a visual logic puzzle and quickly became too exhausting to be comical. Either that, or it played the twist first, and then spent an hour telling the joke which it had the punchline for three episodes prior. 

Like this.

It was hit and miss at best.

Character-Centric Episodes

I am not convinced that a comedy can succeed in a character-centric format. It works for drama, because drama is about the story, and the backstory, and the character development, etc. We’ve all heard the straight-man theory, that there’s the guy that is (somewhat) normal amongst his cast of officemates (Jim Halpert) or friends (Jerry Seinfeld). In Arrested Development it’s Michael. The show is ultimately “about” him. It’s not about his alcoholic mother, his never-nude brother in law, or his hook-handed half-brother. As lame as a criticism of “it’s breaking a rule of comedy” is when I’ve already suggested the show is trying to be “pioneering”, it’s still messing with a formula that shouldn’t be messed with. The Bluths are not funny by themselves in long doses. When you break it up into character-centric episodes you make it about the characters, and this demands that the characters be viable as individuals, which demands development. 

The development was arrested.

Essentially, Arrested Development became a drama. It became a show where the point was obsessive plot tracking. And maybe it even had flashes of being a good drama, which is why none of us are comfortable coming down too hard on it despite the fact that we refuse to embrace it. But this is NOT what we expect from Arrested Development, and I think we would all have preferred that it not try to stop being funny.

Seriously, this whole storyline was awful.

The Writing Was Bad

In one of G.O.B.’s episodes, there was a scene where he was startled by a painting of Jesus on the wall in Anne’s bedroom. He remarks, “For a second I thought that was a real guy.” This was just a one-off line that had nothing to do with anything, and it was hilarious. It's a line that goes back to the days of “Uncle G.O.B., was Lindsay ever pregnant?” “Oh yeah, dozens of times.” 

I (despite my religious views) busted out laughing, something I did all too infrequently in S4. It relates that idea that S4 wasn’t funny, but with a different perspective on it: all the dialogue was so consumed in progressing the (albeit genius) plot that it rarely had the opportunity to live in the moment. All of the other flaws that S4 had could have been fairly excusable (and perhaps even strengths) if it weren’t for this glaring issue. There were references galore—mostly to the original trilogy—but a lot of them were so subtle that I didn’t even realize a reference was being made until I saw some explained on the Arrested Development wiki when I looked for the pictures for this article. They weren’t references as much as they were Easter eggs. Had we along the way been given little things—just little itty bitty quick jokes—to laugh at, S4 could have easily been on par with the original trilogy. It’s the most basic and simple level of “not funny”. Rebel’s son running into the pool filled with sex offenders? Hysterical. Setting up for a punchline that won’t come for three episodes or making reference to a barely significant line in season two? Clever, but not funny. 


So maybe we all watched S4 incorrectly, maybe we’re all looking for the wrong things in it. I respect the show for following what it felt like was the necessary creative direction. And I think it’s a fascinating direction to explore. But this wasn’t the Arrested Development I’ve grown to love, and I’d rather some other show have gone down this path than the Bluth family’s.

I would have too.