#ad2013

"Now I have a bit of a mess on my hands." - Tobias Funkë

One of my great fears going into the new season of Arrested Development was that it was going to be a disappointment or a letdown compared to the joy of the previous 3 seasons of Arrested Development (especially the 1st and 2nd season).  And as we all must face our fears, the new season fell pretty flat for me for many reasons and I'll try to enumerate them here for some reason without hopefully rambling too much.

I'll start with the first one that really surprised me and I found myself saying over and over again, "Arrested Development got way racist".  And there is a subtle distinction between the previous seasons and it has to do with the Michael character.  Previously as the moral center and counterbalance to the rest of the family, he would provide a check on the whole family's ridiculous and offensive behavior by saying something or the show simply showing a shot of his face showing us that this was a rich, out of touch family but that wasn't a state of mind held by all.  However, for whatever reason (which I believe is supposed to be a part of the plot but I'm not sure because most of it was unintelligible), Michael devolves into a character who has lost his moral center in the new season and becomes more like the rest of his family and consequently it went from "Wow, this family is racist" to "Wow, this show is racist".  Witness the "Bluth Family tipping policy" which is thrown into the show for no particular reason. (The family does not think it acceptable to give gratuity to black workers or employees).  Also, Michael's frustration at the TSA Agent asking him for extra screening but (I'm paraphrasing) "allowing those 4 people in burkas right through".  And there is the whole "Cuatro de Mayo" celebration, which is plainly racist on it's face and they even address in the show how much the Latino characters hate the "holiday".

I understand that the AD Season 4 producers had to work around schedules in such a way that the entire cast is rarely in the same shot at the same time.  This is a huge problem for me as the huge, dysfunctional family all together played really well (see, Season 1 Public Relations or The Marta Complex).  That issues forces (or allows depending on your point of view) the producers to cast other characters for the existing AD family to work with and all of the new characters are dreadful at best.  The face-blindness guy was highly boring and Tobias' new companion was not interesting in the least.  The Herman Cain-type character was actually less interesting than the real Herman Cain.

Speaking of characters, there is a reason that some of these characters were smaller characters in the show (see Tobias and George Sr and ) their characters cannot hold up entire episodes as the en

This sends me into my next point, the length.  As other reviews have said before me, Netflix putting no length restrictions on any of their shows is a blessing (more than 22 minutes of show!) and a curse.  It is a curse for Arrested Development as it allows them to linger on half-baked jokes and jokes that don't even land and linger in situations that do nothing but add additional awkwardness to these already awkward characters.  The 22-minute restriction is way too short for a lot of producers, but it forces them to leave in only the best jokes and quickly transition from one place to the next.  Without that restriction, we are left with a show that is potentially anywhere from 10% to 100% too long in each and every episode.

The lack of chemistry between characters made the whole season (that I've been able to force myself through) seem like an elaborate fanfic.

I could not care less about the little "mysteries" they are tying together through the season, most of them, like the jokes, go on for far too long and lack the punch when we actually get to the payoff.

What happened to Lindsay Bluth's face? What happened to Steve Holt?  Did he fall into a wormhole and age 30 years?

I love Arrested Development and I so badly want this experiment to succeed and I think it probably already has.  But, the show can be SO. MUCH. BETTER than this... I think?

Is it soup? Apparently not.

Mom, it's breakfast . . .

There's got to be a better way to say that...