The new season of Arrested Development and what it means for the future of Television.

(This review contains minor spoilers, a few specifics but mostly talks about the overall concepts of the new season.)

If you are like me you may have spent a good chunk of your memorial weekend binge watching the new season of Arrested Development.  I must admit when I first delved into my binge I was skeptical of the new season.  The Fourth season follows a new format with each episode revolving around one character (Micheal’s Arrested Development, Lindsey’s Arrested Development etc.); this presumably was to accommodate all of the actor’s busy schedules.  Through the first few episodes the new format left me uneasy about the new season, but as the season went on the old jokes that I loved (her?) and the shows familiar cast of characters put me at ease. This isn’t the same Arrested Development that we all remember, but after seven years off the air, a completely new storytelling format and being brought back through online streaming instead of traditional TV it would have been impossible for it to stay the same.  This time around Arrested Development is different but is still good and a worthwhile reboot of the show.

The new season’s grandest accomplishment isn’t it’s comedy, but it’s mode of storytelling as you see events from the perspectives of multiple characters, similar to Van Sant’s Elephant without all of the annoyingly long following shots.  However this does make for some confusion as to the chronology of some events and I found myself losing my bearings in a few episodes.   This leads to interesting use of suspense and surprise that adds another dimension to the comedy of the show. The comedy doesn’t quite measure up to the first few seasons, though I probably missed 100 hidden jokes throughout the season.   The show is still funny and full of laughs especially for loyal viewers of the show as some running gags from previous seasons continue into the new season; it’s just near impossible for the show to measure up to its previous three seasons.  

The new season also suffers from making this show’s dysfunctional family even more dysfunctional.  Even the characters of Michael and his son (George Michael) have become as dysfunctional as the rest of their family and have now assumed new roles as pathological liars.  At times it becomes almost annoying how incapable the members of the Bluth family are, the show in some ways has lost a little bit of it’s heart.  This mostly likely stems from the fact that due to the actor’s complex schedules we rarely get a scene where we get to see the entire Bluth family together, or more than two Bluths together in the same room for that matter.

Fans of Arrested Development will be happy to hear that the show still lays on a heavy social commentary behind all it’s comedic genius.  Heavy on the religious commentary as always, on episode in which Gob makes a joke that he thought a painting of certain famous prophet was a real person.  This along with the new season poking fun at the entertainment industry much like its predecessors helps us appreciate the sheer complexity and detail of the show. 

The entire season seems to building up to a final event or something of the sort.  However the end to the anticipation doesn’t really seem to payoff.  The season doesn’t end with a great sense of closure, which is ok since it’s clear that this most likely won’t be the last we see of the Bluths.  Netflix unfortunately has already made it clear that they won’t be bringing Arrested Development for a fifth

season. I’m confident however that if the fans and creators of the show could make a fourth season happen, making the much talked about possible Arrested Development movie shouldn’t be a problem.

So What Does This All Mean For Television?

This new season of Arrested Development is another step towards Netflix push to create original programming.  But Netflix isn’t the only subscription based online streaming company that has begun create original programming Hulu and Amazon have been doing the same as well.  Hulu (from what I can tell from Ads) has been creating many British online show and Amazon recently released the Pilot for Zombieland the series.  This all adds up to being a bad sign of things to come for traditional television programming.

The Internet’s power to provide and produce quality content online is continuing to grow, something that could lead to the death Cable, broadcast and satellite TV.  As Internet becomes more readily available to people across the country, websites that provide online streaming will become serious competition for Television.  There are majorities of people, mostly young that already watch television shows on their laptop instead of their TV’s.  A move for TV networks to release their content online along with their regular programming is a very important to help stay relevant in the digital age.  This move also make’s financial sense, Arrested Development was illegally downloaded 100,000 times, pennies compared to 1 million illegal Downloads of HBO’s Game of Thrones that occurred when the third season first premiered.  Netflix is incredibly more affordable and allows access to a larger range of content, than a costly premium cable package plan that contains HBO.

It is very possible that a few decades from now that TV in the traditional sense could be dead and instead families across America could have what functions as a giant computer monitor as the centerpiece in their living room.  A study found that eighty three percent of people under the age of 25 watch at least some of their Television show online, with a quarter of respondent saying they watch ALL their TV online.  TV is moving from cable and satellite as its medium to the Internet, for better or worse.