By Shelby Clemons, Staff Writer
Rarely do canceled television shows ever come back, but the hit 2003-2006 sitcom Arrested Development is back with not only 15 brand new episodes, but also rumors of a full-length film. The show was canceled in 2006 after its third season, but in 2012 Netflix bought the rights to film 15 new episodes for a revival. For those of you new to the Arrested Development fandom, the series follows the formerly wealthy and highly dysfunctional Bluth family. When we last saw the Bluths at the end of the 2006 season, they were caught in another scandal; they made a huge mistake.
Unlike previous seasons, each character gets his or her own episode in which the events are strictly focused on the character. Many of the things that happen in individual episodes aren’t fully explained until later, which makes it a bit confusing and hard to keep up with at times. Though there’s a glitzy new opener, not much has changed; the same running jokes are used, the characters have the same personalities and every actor returned to film the new season.
The first episode is Michael’s Arrested Development and, once again, he tries to denounce his family and fails. Michael finally finishes developing houses around his lone model home to create Sudden Valley, when there is a sudden housing bubble and the development turns into a ghost town. After facing economic troubles and unsuccessfully seeking help from the Bluth Company’s new main shareholder, Lucille Austero, Michael moves in with his now-grown son George Michael at UC Irvine. Just as much the overbearing father as he’s always been, Michael’s presence begins to affect George Michael, his new roommate Paul and his cousin Maeby. They vote him out of the dorm, and he finds out a certain article he’s been waiting for called him a failed businessman, so he goes to Phoenix. There are a lot of loose ends that will be explained later on.
The best part about the new episodes is the cameos. In the first episode, the Workaholics cast, including Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine, Anders Holm and Erik Griffin, makes an appearance. Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen hilariously portray Lucille and George Sr. (the heads of the Bluth family) in flashbacks.
From a real Bluth banana stand to a full-size stair car (both running jokes from the series), the hype surrounding the return of Arrested Development has been huge. It’s great to see a show network revive seven years after its cancellation and accomplish it in a way so that it still feels familiar and fresh. If there was ever a time to start watching Arrested Development, it’s now.
Courtesy of i.huffpost.com