Arrested Development…worth it?

[Phil]

Hey sexy!

I have a question for you. I’ve heard lots of good things about the show Arrested Development but I haven’t seen it. Obviously it’s got a lot of hugely talented people in it, but, for whatever reason, I never thought to sit down and watch it while it was free.

But now I see I can get full seasons for around $20. Which is pretty cheap. Is it worth buying on a whim?

A lot of you already know my basic tastes in television so you can make a pretty educated guess, but I’m just curious if there’s an overall consensus.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Yes, yes…for the love of God YES.

Arrested Development is sheer genius. Best comedy of the past 10 years in my opinion….and probably the best episodic American comedy ever.

[Seb Patrick]

$20 per season is an absolute STEAL. Buy the lot RIGHT NOW. That’s… what, thirty quid? YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT AT ALL.

I’m with Dave on this – I can’t think of a better American (non-animated) comedy off the top of my head.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Ah yes…non-animated. I meant non-animated.

But it’s still better than EVERYTHING other than the Simpsons (and maybe Futurama).

[Jason aka Smeg4Brains]

Better than Friends?

[Zombie Jim Undead]

That’s like comparing Christ to Joe Pasquale’s rectal wart.

[Jason aka Smeg4Brains]

So you think Simpsons is better than Friends?

I think you need a swift kick to the bollocks.

[Arlene Rimmer BSc SSc]

All the episodes of Arrested Development that I caught were excellent, as is everyone in it. I’d go for it, were I in your position.

[Jonathan Capps]

Phil, buy Arrested Development now, for fucking fuck’s sake.

[Mr Flibble]

If, like me, you’ve been planning to buy it for ages, it’s currently ?9.99/season on hmv.com. And ?29.99ish everywhere else…

[Dave]

I vote yes.

[Seb Patrick]

>it?s currently ?9.99/season on hmv.com

Ooh, thanks. I need to get one and three (seen them, don’t own them), so that sounds like a hella deal to me…

[Zombie Jim Undead]

I got all three seasons on Amazon.com for $20 including postage from Americas.

Was a one day only offer.

*smug mode*

[cliff]

SOD THAT!, just buy all the Family Guy seasons!.

[Phil]

UPDATE:
I’m a cock, because I guess I waited too long and the are no longer on sale at that particular store. Back up to around $50 per season. Boo.

I went back to buy it and nothing. So I’ll have a look online; I’m sure I can find them somewhere for approximately that price…

[Pete Part Three]

>SOD THAT!, just buy all the Family Guy seasons!.

Yeah, and you could follow it up by feeding your testicles to a rampant chipmunk.

[Seb Patrick]

>SOD THAT!, just buy all the Family Guy seasons!.

While I do like (the first three seasons of) FG, the suggestion that it’s somehow more worthy of money/attention than Arrested Development is… mindboggling.

When Cappsy and I lived together, I think I did a good job of getting him to read various comics that he otherwise might not have discovered. In the simple act of forcing me to watch AD, though, he more than reciprocated.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Smeg4Brain’s idea of Friends being better than the Simpsons is also sure mindboggling….or am I in the minority on that one?

[Pete Part Three]

Mindboggling if we’re only counting the first ten seasons of both programmes. Season 4,5 and 6 of The Simpsons are arguably better than anything.

However, I’d rather watch the last season of Friends than the latest season of The Simpsons.

[Seb Patrick]

>Season 4,5 and 6 of The Simpsons are arguably better than anything.

Change it to 3, 4 and 5 and remove the “arguably”, and I’m in agreement.

>However, I?d rather watch the last season of Friends than the latest season of The Simpsons.

This also.

[Danny Stephenson]

I’ve just started buying all the seasons of Family guy, but I’ve been buyi8ng them in reverse order since I’ve seen 1, 2, 3 most recently, so starting from the most recent, I’ve now got Season 3, 4, 5 and 6… nearly there..

[Jonathan Capps]

Family Guy really is still quite remarkable. It only had a shakey patch when it returned, which seems to have put off a huge amount of people, but that spell’s long gone.

Arrested Development still kicks its arse, but there are VERY few shows that are exempt from this.

[Phil]

>Change it to 3, 4 and 5 and remove the ?arguably?, and I?m in agreement.

Not a fan of 6? Honestly I could expand it to 3 – 8 and be perfectly happy. Eight had a few dud episodes but it also had some of the out and out best, and on the whole the quality level was still very high…high enough for Best Television Ever consideration at least.

[Nakrophile]

I like it. I wish BBC2 would put it back on, although Malcolm in the Middle is good also.

[Seb Patrick]

>Not a fan of 6? Honestly I could expand it to 3 – 8 and be perfectly happy.

Oh, I love plenty of 6 as well, it’s got some of the absolute greatest episodes. But it’s also the first season since the second that, for me, isn’t *quite* perfect – there are a couple of weak ones in there, such as Bart vs Australia. It’s not as marked a contrast of brilliance and disappointment as seasons 7 and 8 turned out to be, but it was the end of what I would call a perfect run – I mean, I cannot find a single flaw anywhere in 3-5.

[Phil]

>I mean, I cannot find a single flaw anywhere in 3-5.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, in that case I pretty much agree with your assessment.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Am watching Simpsons all the way through. Half way through season 10 and still loving it.

[Phil]

>Half way through season 10 and still loving it.

I think Seb’s point was that 3-5 were pretty much flawless–not, as I had originally assumed, that the greatness stopped there.

The show still continuted to be fucking excellent right up through 8 (by my count), 9 had its highlights but the show started to really show its weakness, and 10 I don’t remember at all, but, being honest, that’s more down to me than the show itself, as that’s about the time I kind of stopped watching television.

[Jonathan Capps]

STOP talking about The Simpsons, and let’s watch the greatest sit-com ever made…

[Dave]

>STOP talking about The Simpsons, and let?s watch the greatest sit-com ever made?

The Thin Blue Line?

[Tarka Dal]

…Just a Gigolo?

[Ian Symes]

Days Like These?

[Phil]

http://www.amazon.com/Arrested-Development-Complete-Seasons/dp/B000JJ3Y78/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1216069334&sr=8-1
$45 for all three seasons. Yes please!

Also:
Herman’s Head

[John Hoare]

The Thin Blue Line is fucking superb. It makes me laugh as much as any sitcom ever has done.

Anyway: I need to see Arrested Development too. I’d buy it from HMV immediately if I didn’t have so much else in my massive DVD queue…

[Pete Part Three]

>Days Like These?

DO YOU REMEMBER THE SEVENTIES?!

And surely Cappsy meant “Bent Coppers”.

[ChrisM]

I think I vaguely remember the seventies, although I didn’t think of them as that. Mostly embarrassing stuff like getting pushed around in a buggy or lying on my back with my feet in the air and falling over a lot.

Sounds like a great night out doesn’t it? Except possibly the buggy bit.

[Dave]

I don’t understand the way the BBC schedules shows like Seinfeld, Larry Sanders, or Arrested Development, presumably quite expensive imports, buried on BBC2 at gone midnight, while UK equivalents would get the more prized 9:30ish slots.

[Seb Patrick]

Arrested Development should have been shown at 9pm every night on a constant loop of all three of its seasons, with a special fanfare and possibly a Radio Times cover every week.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

At least.

[Seb Patrick]

Greatest moment in TV history?

[Zombie Jim Undead]

AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA.

You know, when I clicked on that link I was thinking “Whatever moment Seb’s chosen, it won’t be as good as the Mrs Featherbottom falls of the balcony bit. I’ll have to post that in reply”…

[pfm]

Only seen bits and pieces of it over the years. Yet ANOTHER show I promised myself I’d properly watch one day. Best get them watched before the film next year. Jeffrey Tambor is nothing short of brilliant. First in Larry Sanders and then AR.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx-EikbUQpA

[Kevin G]

I was going to share my Pop Secret with you, but FORGET IT!

[Zombie Jim Undead]

I have pop pop in the attic.

[Ridley]

Cast looked too old and Lindsay’s nose is odd.

(But I’m pleasantly surprised that a bird was the best thing in it and the FF’s profile has been boosted. Sort of.)

[Pete Part Three]

Never got round to round watching Season 3, as it goes. Kinda decided that I was never going to fully “get it”, so gave up. SUE ME.

[Blisschick]

New episodes on Netflix and my to do list. I never watched it until Netflix made it available a few years ago. Don’t know how I managed to miss it before then. My bad.

[Ben Paddon]

It took a while to get going for me – the first three or four episodes are fairly exposition-y – but once you get into it and see what they’re doing, it’s exceptional. Quite possibly the best the show has ever been. They’ve very intentionally designed the show to be watched in one binge sitting, or broken up into two or three sittings, and it’s constructed in such a way that repeat viewings will be just as rewarding as they were during the first three seasons.

My big fear was that they’d do the same thing most revived shows do, where they just repeat past jokes and self-reference themselves out of being funny, rather like Bender’s Big Score or (arguably) Back to Earth. But they didn’t. They paid some lip service to the past, but it’s mostly about the future of the show. Kind of like Doctor Who, actually.

[Phil]

I’m only a few episodes in.

Still deciding.

[JamesTC]

The first few episodes seem a little lacklustre at first. The first few episodes are made better by watching the later episodes. Comments by people who haven’t seen all 15 episodes should be ignored as you need to watch the whole thing to appreciate it.

Once you get to episode 5 (the first Tobias episode) it is back to its best.

Hoping for a similar styled season 5 rather than a movie. Much rather have another big 8 hour story.

[Ridley]

Hoping for a similar styled season 5 rather than a movie. Much rather have another big 8 hour story.

Yeah, I’d prefer that. I’m satisfied that I don’t need them all orbiting Michael so to speak.

Worst thing in the season for me was telegraphing some of the jokes or thinking the occasional reference felt forced. Minor complaints. Happy with what I got (although I didn’t have to wait years as I only latched onto the show in Jegguary).

[Phil]

“Comments by people who haven’t seen all 15 episodes should be ignored”

That…seems a little unfair. Unless somebody is dismissing it outright and saying the entire season isn’t worth watching due to their being underwhelmed by some early ones, I don’t think a comment that suggests they’re still feeling it out deserves to be ignored. Folks are entitled to opinions.

[si]

Ignore this comment. I’ve never seen an episode of Arrested Development in my life.

*wanders off to look at next thread*

[JamesTC]

That…seems a little unfair. Unless somebody is dismissing it outright and saying the entire season isn’t worth watching due to their being underwhelmed by some early ones, I don’t think a comment that suggests they’re still feeling it out deserves to be ignored. Folks are entitled to opinions.

Of course folks are entitled to their opinions. I’m just warning that they shouldn’t be taken on-board because you need to have seen the whole thing (or at least to the middle of the season) to appreciate how brilliant the intricate writing is and to appreciate many of the jokes. Including appreciating everything in the first few episodes.

As I’ve said, I think the first few episodes are a little lacklustre as AD goes at first, but they are significantly improved with the hindsight of later episodes. This is why I think it is better to read a review of somebody who has seen the whole thing rather than get the wrong impression of the whole.

I should point out, as now that I re-read what I’ve written right after yours, my comment was not a slight on what you written just before. It was a comment on some negative comments I’ve seen from people who are only talking of the first few episodes. I’d have written exactly the same as you after the first 3 or 4 episodes. After the second episode I really was starting to wonder whether they had made a big mistake.

[Pecospete666]

Reminds me of Mary Hartman! Many of you not even a gleam in your parents eye :)

https://www.google.com/search?q=mary+hartman&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

[Phil]

“my comment was not a slight on what you written just before. It was a comment on some negative comments I’ve seen from people who are only talking of the first few episodes. I’d have written exactly the same as you after the first 3 or 4 episodes.”

Ah, clarification appreciated. :)

I’m now half way through.

I’m…still deciding.

[Joey TORDFC]

I watched one and a half episodes with this lovely lot on Monday, I wasn’t enamoured with the first episode, but I’m going to stick with it. Of course everything prior was pure genius.

[Phil]

Review: “Flight of the Phoenix,” Arrested Development season 4, episode 1

I’m going to review each of them. This one is actually a strong contender for my favorite so far.

[Ian Symes]

Just finished it. That ending was… odd…

[Phil]

I’ve got about four episodes left.

I’ve more or less decided.

[Phil]

The ending was indeed odd. This definitely wasn’t for me.

[MANI506]

Any more Noiseless Chatter reviews Phil? I’m up to episode 7 and I’m enjoying it although I’m only laughing two or three times an episode.

[Phil]

Yep! I didn’t post all the links here but I’ve published reviews of the first three episodes. Here they are for ease of clicking:

Review: “Borderline Personalities,” Arrested Development season 4, episode 2

Review: “Indian Takers,” Arrested Development season 4, episode 3

I’ll definitely be doing the rest of the season. I’ve got a lot to say about a few upcoming episodes in particular.

[MANI506]

Cheers! I’ll look now….

[MANI506]

I’m on episode 8 but this has been a useful reminder as to what is going on. I think one of the reasons I’m not laughing so much is because seasons 1 and 2 were watched with a group whereas these episodes I’m watching on my own. We abandoned season 3 a few episodes in I remember.

[Stephen R. Fletcher]

Finally got to the end tonight. I do agree that the ending was odd. It took a while for me to settle in to the new format, really; I’d say each character having their own story has its pros and cons (Far too little of GOB in the first half of the season for one thing, IMO). Some episodes felt a little underwhelming and the first episode was disappointing on first viewing, but I have a feeling that I will probably like it more and others I didn’t initially like, after now seeing the whole season and understanding what they’re doing. Once I got that, I enjoyed it a whole lot more and it made me look forward to repeated viewings as I knew I would be rewarded.

Ben mentioned this and I had this fear, too, that it would go the way most revived shows have gone where they repeat old jokes and self-reference themselves far too much (I still love Futurama but I do think that they’ve done a little too much of this since coming back) but it only does a tiny bit of that, then mostly moves on and in some way, tries to be it’s own thing.

[Ben Paddon]

One constant complaint I’ve seen expressed by people – including Phil – is “Tobias isn’t a pedophile, so why is he a pedophile in season 4?”

And the answer, obviously, is that he isn’t. What happens to Tobias is a natural and believable extension of his unique way of speaking. Tobias is utterly oblivious to just how loaded his words can be, and what they could possibly mean in another context.

I am amazed by just how many people aren’t getting that.

[JamesTC]

What don’t people get about that? He goes home and asks Maeby to help him get his rocks off (the literal rocks he was wearing) and that made the police think he was a paedophile because of the way he worded it. As you say, it is a natural extension of the joke about the way he speaks. I thought it was one of the funniest moments this season.

[Phil]

>including Phil

I thought I made it clear that my concern was that I wasn’t sure why they were mining pedophilia for humor when they had so much else to work with. It didn’t seem like a natural punchline for the character…I absolutely didn’t think that he was a sexual predator. I actually spent a lot of time deconstructing that scene to make my concerns clear but, well, if you didn’t get that from my write-up then I hope I at least made it clear now.

It’s not a case of not getting the joke…it’s a case of not finding it very funny.

[Ben Paddon]

Ah, I get it now. Your review of “Smashed” rather simply describes Tobias as “a pedophile making musicals of comic books,” which is a bit of an oversimplification of his story in this whole chain of events. Rubbed me the wrong way, I guess.

Mind you, I have seen people say, “But he’s NOT a pedophile! Why are they doing this to his character?!?!?!?!” which is even more baffling and frustrating.

For what it’s worth I think they’ve handled Tobias rather well, and writing the musical serves as a logical extension of both his idiotic desire to be an actor and, where DeBrie is concerned, holding on to someone who is supportive of his stupid dream. Honestly the only thing that didn’t work for that whole arc was…

…(and, obviously, spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet)…

…Lucille’s involvement. Which felt a little forced.

[Phil]

>Your review of “Smashed” rather simply describes Tobias as “a pedophile making musicals of comic books,” which is a bit of an oversimplification of his story in this whole chain of events

Admittedly it is! But that’s the third (or so, going by memory here) episode in which it came up, and I described it in a lot more detail in the previous ones. It’s a simplification, but only because we already covered it elsewhere.

The Lucille bit gets posted on Wednesday. ;)

[Ridley]

There’s a recut, too, of the fourth season, just to make it airable on TV. They’re like the old ‘Arrested Developments.’ We redid all the narration and reshot a few little things. Now we have 22 episodes, and they’re delightful to watch and they’re much less work than the Netflix series. My hope is we’ll find a place to air those.

Please recut it so Lindsay never gets to actually sleep with Marky Bark as his face blindness means he instead keeps hooking up with Cindy the ostrich by mistake.

[Author]

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