Because if there’s anything out there better than Arrested Development, or at least as good, I’d like to know about it. Maybe I just like it because I’ve been indulging so heavily. I tore through the season one DVD in a few weeks and have been religiously downloading the bittorrents as soon as they appear (I don’t get Fox).
The ensemble cast and the writing being done for them is superlative. I’m even embarassed at how much I enjoy Jason Batemen playing straight man to his family of clowns. It’s all very Royal Tenenbaums, but with a darker twist, a more cynical crude bite. Great stuff.
This last episode – with the bounty hunters, Buster thinking he’s gone to Mexico, Ann Plant being left behind, Gob’s chicken/homo impression, David Cross’s dead wife blunder, and even the stupid Martin Mull appearances – was probably my favorite.
No. Emphatically no. But then again I’m the comedy oddball in my group of friends. I can’t stand Ben Stiller. I hate hate hate the self referential, ostentatiously ironic ethos of the annoying VH1 talking heads on their “I love the (fill in decade here)” shows. I am a Grumpy Old Man when it comes to comedy.
All that to say, I find Arrested Development to be equally odious.
Here’s what happened: mid-first season, they stopped airing the show, for like two months. I loved the show to death, it was my favorite show on tv, but I didn’t know when it was starting up again… and I found out too late.
I just plowed throught season 1 a couple weeks ago as well and it immediately launched high up into my list of favorite comedies. I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed as much as at some of David Case’s antics. The continual crying early in season 1, the never nude stuff, and then his acrobatics in the blind lawyer’s house. I was rolling at that.
Great, great show. Spent the first season avoiding it, though, fearing a repeat of Fox crushing me like it did by canceling Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Finally feel safe now that it’s won the Emmy. Surely Fox won’t be stupid enough to can it now, or move it.
I watch it. A late welcome to the party, Tom. It’s pretty much the only show that I watch on network television, and one of the best things on the air.
Yeah, I was a little worried after last season. But the two most recent episodes – the Mexico trip and the one with Thomas Jane as Thomas Jane – have been really good.
Extarbags, just get the season one DVDs from Blockbusters or something. Besides, I’m not sure you necessarily need to follow it in sequence. I would think Arrested Development is a show you could enjoy out of order.
Oh, and if you’re like me and you avoid those “Next week on…” teasers at the end of a TV show, don’t miss the ones for Arrested Development. They’re all fake! And often pretty damn funny.
I guess the only downside is that it’s only a matter of time before Fox cancels it. No show that is this cleverly written and acted survives on Fox for very long.
You probably could watch it out of order, but on the other hand, it ties even subtle things together from one episode to the next, and sometimes far in advance. Uh, spoilers or something. Remember episode 14, with Heather Graham as the teacher Michael briefly dates who “loves Saddam”? Michael a couple times in the episode sees pictures of hers of Iraq and gives some throwaway comment about the palaces reminding him of the model home. Nothing else is said about it until the final episode, I’d completely forgotten the comments up until we find out the Bluths had committed some “light treason” and actually did build palaces for Saddam. I was laughing all the more, realizing it explained the seemingly meaningless comments mid-season.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder than during a party scene, when someone started shouting “Speech! Speech!” and the rest of them chimed in, only have it all kind of peter out when everyone realized they didn’t know to whom they were yelling.
The Ron Howard voice-over is classic stuff. He’s the real straight-man in the whole ensemble…
I just rented Disc 1, Season 1 at Blockbuster over the weekend. Hilarious. God, I remember hating Jason Batemen on The Hogan Family and Valerie, but now I’m wondering how he never got any work for the past decade. (And, seriously, is his sister still hawt?)
The subplot I’m loving most is George Michael trying to score with his cousin. The episode where he pretends to know everything about prison is hilarious. (What he doesn’t tell Maybe is that he everything he learned about prison he learned from watching Oz.) When he showed up to the prison was hilarious.
The kid who plays George Michael is great. One of the memorable subtle moments from last season was a brief bit of dialogue where he’s explaining to his dad how he would ask his teacher if she’d like to dance with him, using what he must think is a basso profundo voice, only to quickly explain that it went a little differently when he was practicing in the mirror.
Then there was last episode when his dad makes some disparaging comment about his girlfiend Ann and says ‘You should probably just date your cousin’. The quick transition George Michael makes from ‘Really?’ to ‘Oh, you were just kidding’ is classic.
I’ve not seen every episode, but I DID see this one, and I was laughing so damned hard I cried. I plan to get season 1 on DVD eventually, so I can see 'em all. Hilarious show. I don’t watch too much TV, but I try to catch this when I can.
I watched most of the first season when it first aired, but I still but the DVDs and I’m watching it all again. This show is so funny, even the DVD menus are hilarious.
“What have we always said is the most important thing?”
“Breakfast?”
“Family”
“Oh right… I thought you were talking about the things we eat.”
