Come On!

Why everyone needs to shut up and enjoy the fourth season of Arrested Development

            Now the story of a virtually flawless television show that lost everything (and then gained it all back) and the one critic who had no choice but to keep the media off the backs of its loyal fans.
            In a fandom as extensive as that of “Arrested Development,” which ran from 2003 to 2006 on the Fox Network and is—it has to be said—the greatest television program ever created (or at least on par with “Seinfeld,” “The Odd Couple,” “The Office,” and “30 Rock”), it is inevitable that two schools of thought would crop up in response to the news that the much-heralded, Emmy-winning comedy would be returning for a fourth season on Netflix.  For months, however, the more cynical of the two remained hidden.  Indeed, ardent fans such as myself were treated to months of near-hysterical anticipation as guest starts, images, and videos appeared sparingly from the creators of the program (headed up by the incomparable Mitch Hurwitz, to whom television nerds owe everything).  What, oh what, would the incorrigible Bluths get up to next, and would good son Michael ever succeed in keeping them all together?

            There was certainly no dissent—none who would dare to suggest that Netflix had somehow made a huge mistake in bringing back the show, or that the show’s original creators and writers themselves would somehow not do it justice.   There were no materialists who intimated that the stars of the show would not “look as good,” or that narrator Ron Howard would not “sound as good.”  It was, thankfully, all quiet on the western front as we in the comedy-obsessive community breathlessly awaited the return of a friend we believed would never leave us in the first place.

            For the connection between the fans of “Arrested Development” and the show itself is and has always been as strong as the link between Buster Bluth and his contemptuous mother, or between his contemptuous mother and an 8:00 AM martini.  The lucky bastards who watched the show loyally, live, every Monday at 10 for almost three years had the initial love, sure, but AD had other lovers: those who bought the DVD’s (chock-full of incisive commentary and surreal bloopers that might not be bloopers at all) and every now die-hard fan (myself included) who discovered it on Netflix, the forum it was born to commune with.  The brilliant, witty, and sharp humor of the show is such that repeated viewings and especially binge-watching are rewarded with in-jokes, running gags and sudden, abrupt plot twists found by the captivated viewer as a Ben and Jerry’s spelunker might discover a chunk of cookie dough in their ice cream.  AD was perfect and remains perfect.  The cast members are ideally suited to their respective roles, the writers to their specific, brutally funny wit, and the story to a slightly insane, always magnificent tilt towards uncontrollable hilarity.

            Or such was the feeling of the “Arrested Development” fan base before the dark time of a few days before the release of the new episodes on May 26^th.  On those few days, mutterings from various pop culture websites and social networks arose, with messages like “Don’t get your hopes too high” and “It can never be as good as the original.”  Surely these so-called fans had hope that, just as there is always money in the banana stand, there is always humor in Newport Beach?

            Incredibly frustratingly, these rumors and muffled anger culminated in Mike Hale of the New York Times writing, on the morning of the 26^th, “Chalk one up for the Internet.  It has killed ‘Arrested Development.’”

            This lie is not only so near to treason that George Bluth Sr. could be brought up on charges for it, but also incredibly, unforgivably uninformed.  Not only had Mr. Hale only watched 8 of 15 of the episodes released (admittedly, for reasons of restrictive Times deadlines), but he was also noticeably bitter in his review, as when he calls Season Four “forced and overly complicated,” and as when he uses complex phrasing and analytical language in a bit of critical trickery waved in the faces of readers of the Times who would, if a bit more intelligent, notice that the critic was spewing bunkum.

            None of those outspoken against the new season—not the writers at The A.V. Club (who called Season Four “an always bloated boondoggle of a project”), TV Guide (“heartbreaking and tragic”), or IGN (“lame and lacking in energy”) have specified any reasons for their displeasure other than the fact that the show is “different” than it was.  To rationalize this painfully obvious observation, one need look no further than the fact that Season Four is presented in a different format—one episode per character, with fantastically intricate and overlapping storylines that are generally revealed to the viewer with increasing clarity, as if we are solving a mystery.  This at most minor makeover for the show (which, by the way, must have been hugely difficult to pull off and is not something for bored users of Tumblr to be complaining about) does not change the humor or the complexity of the show, which remain as concrete and entertaining as they were seven years ago (or, in my case, have been on Netflix). 

The universal thread between the naysayers has been that the show should never have been revived in the first place, that “what’s dead should stay dead” (according to Matt Seitz, an analyst for Vulture, in an editorial he wrote in the fall).  Mr. Seitz professes that “when a work’s cultural moment has passed yet fans convince creators to revisit it, the result will always feel unnatural, no matter how deftly it tickles our nostalgia.”  In the same article, he bemoans the power fans have attained in a new era of content creation and consumption in their ability to “zombify” shows that went away for a reason.  There is no other way to respond to Mr. Seitz’s allegations other than the fact that he is patently wrong.  He misrepresents and distracts from what he is trying to say, but in fact he’s basically maintaining that, as in the dark days of pre-2000, network executives (who, as we on the Internet know, are all idiots) should control what we see, based on completely inaccurate Nielsen ratings and whatever blather they’re convinced they’ll be able to sell advertising on.  Mr. Seitz, I say to you—if I were Mitchell Hurwitz, and I created a show as preternaturally perfect as “Arrested Development,” why wouldn’t I want to write it, produce it, and all-around be a part of it for the rest of my life?  Wouldn’t you?

The reason that such a substantial portion of AD’s viewership has begun to react negatively to what is obviously a massively perfect continuation of the Bluth saga is that we, as a species, are afraid of our own happiness.  We refuse to admit to ourselves that anything could be as good as the original, even if it is—even if a few episodes are better than those of the original run.  We glom on to a fierce loyalty that we don’t feel to an ideology that doesn’t, or shouldn’t by rights, exist.  We deflect and block and slam shut the door on those who suggest that the Star Wars prequels and their ilk could ever truly be considered for widespread appeal, even though some, like the 2008 reboot of “Futurama,” for example, worked magnificently and resurrected the appeal of their respective shows’ brands.  The new can match—and exceed—the old.  Perhaps the reason we find this difficult to accept is because we have been indoctrinated to believe that so many things past are better than things future; or, as Mr. Seitz suggested, it could be our accursed nostalgia.

To summarize, Netflix’s “Arrested Development” is really, really good.  Everyone on it is exactly as charmingly funny as they once were.  The storylines are whip-smart and fit perfectly into AD’s canon.  There is absolutely nothing here to complain about.  (Further, Mitchell Hurwitz worked for seven years to bring back this beautiful, wonderful program, so anyone who'd choose to complain is too self-entitled to reason with.)  If we were able to calm ourselves out of our superior, frothy frenzies, we would be able to settle onto the couch and watch Season Four all the way through all over again, enjoying our old friend "Arrested Development" just as much as we ever have.