Another series of 'Arrested Development'... and a movie!

mloc123

Finished the new episodes now. The first 2 episodes almost feel like footage from season 4 cut together but I found the last 6 very good. Probably nowhere near season 1/2 peak but lots of clever, funny bits in there.

Penn

mloc123 wrote: »

Finished the new episodes now. The first 2 episodes almost feel like footage from season 4 cut together but I found the last 6 very good. Probably nowhere near season 1/2 peak but lots of clever, funny bits in there.

Yeah I'd agree with that. The first two episodes had to do so much to pull everyone back together after Season 4, but after that it started to get better. Surprisingly I got the biggest laughs from Maeby, who has turned into a brilliant character.

mloc123

Penn wrote: »

Yeah I'd agree with that. The first two episodes had to do so much to pull everyone back together after Season 4, but after that it started to get better. Surprisingly I got the biggest laughs from Maeby, who has turned into a brilliant character.

Yes, and she always the weakest. Now that is one dimensional Michael "his only role is to come back... and put his hands in his pockets, what ya got in there? Peanuts?". I noticed Maeby had a burn scar on her arm, at first I thought it was the actress until I remembered the corn baller.

astrofool

mloc123 wrote: »

I noticed Maeby had a burn scar on her arm, at first I thought it was the actress until I remembered the corn baller.

Maybe she'll get a Sitwell out of it.

EPAndlee

Finished this last night, I did enjoy the last few episodes. Nice to see some classic Tobias again. Lindsay looks a lot better than she did in season 4. I assumed it was a different actress at the start of season 4

mloc123

EPAndlee wrote: »

Finished this last night, I did enjoy the last few episodes. Nice to see some classic Tobias again. Lindsay looks a lot better than she did in season 4. I assumed it was a different actress at the start of season 4

GOB looked strange to me, his face was very bloated?

errlloyd

It was excellent by the end!

Penn

mloc123 wrote: »

GOB looked strange to me, his face was very bloated?

Yeah between Seasons 3 and 4, some of the cast aged horribly, but Gob largely looked the same. Now it seems like age has started to hit him hard.

Surprisingly, he's now starting to look more like Steve Holt.

STEVE HOLT!

loyatemu

Penn wrote: »

he's now starting to look more like Steve Holt.

I mean, COME ON!

pixelburp

Yeah, they've all aged too much, even in the time between seasons 4 and 5. Only caught the first episode and tbh thought it pretty rubbish. Really flat, a bit dull if not boring, and the comedy doesn't work with all the cast separated. At least the remixed 4th season did a good job hiding that (and why they went back to the tedious 30 minute episodes is beyond me).

J. Marston

Michael Cera used to look way younger than his actual age, now he looks a good bit older than 29. Pretty sure he has a grey hair or two.

Tobias is still great. "I feel like I should apologise to maybe....(*Maeby steps forward*)....half the people in this room."

pixelburp

Yeah, Cera looks particularly aged, especially with the season 4 footage used at the start of the episode highlighting the fact. Dunno why they didn't just time jump the series, reboot the storyline a little; it's all quite disappointing

RobbingBandit

GOB really flatlined this time round only spark was the in the closet brainstorming session, when are the other episodes due does anyone know.

the whole year inn

RobbingBandit wrote: »

GOB really flatlined this time round only spark was the in the closet brainstorming session, when are the other episodes due does anyone know.

The whole thing with Tony Wonder is pointless,and ruins GOB.I liked it and there is some very funny moments and Maybe is very good.
When are the rest of the episodes released?

the whole year inn

RobbingBandit wrote: »

GOB really flatlined this time round only spark was the in the closet brainstorming session, when are the other episodes due does anyone know.

The whole thing with Tony Wonder is pointless,and ruins GOB.I liked it and there is some very funny moments and Maybe is very good.
When are the rest of the episodes released?

pixelburp

Finished all 8 episodes and ... oof. Tedious, messy and only intermittently funny (one scene between Michael and George-Michael in the penthouse corridor was especially awful), I may be done with this show. Better to remember those hilarious first three series than give the back-half of this one a shot - and convince Netflix to commission a season 6. I'm also guessing that of the cast, only Portia DeRossi had problems linking up with the rest - she was conspicuously absent, when she wasn't under a bedsheet :rolleyes:

Really sub-par stuff, which is surprising too given that remixed Season 4 suggested they saw where some of the problems lay and actively tried to fix them.

There's always something a little depressing too about ageing actors returning to beloved roles, and while the likes of Will Arnett are very far from being OAPs, the 15 years since this show originally aired is clearly seen in the faces of most of the cast (though ironically the 5 years between Seasons 4 & 5 meant DeRossi's rictus Botox face had subsided and had gone back to her more natural striking appearance)

Basq

I gave up half way through the new run!

Mr.Prodston

The middle 4 episodes were reasonably good, I just wish they released the entire lot in one go.

Buster the best part for me!

Penn

Back next month

https://twitter.com/arresteddev/status/1097896089355599872

Must rewatch the last few episodes. They weren't great and to be honest, I forget most of it bar some of Maeby's bits. I really wasn't paying a lot of attention to it, it just seemed even more 'off' than Season 4 did.

pixelburp

Just rereading my comments on the first half and I stand by them; tedious and unfunny. Splitting the series might have been an even bigger mistake, cos who's bothered watching the rest of this?

I only watched Ozark in the last couple of months, so my head canon for this show is that Michael Bluth finally gave up on his family, moved to Chicago to start a new financial career / family, only to end up stuck working for the mob. Bateman's acting is very similar

kerplun k

It’ll never recapture the magic of seasons 1-3, but a subpar Arrested Development is still better than 95% of the drivel that’s out there.

One thing I will say is this, what a god awful decision it was to mess with the traditional 22 minute runtime. It feels like Mitchell Hurwitz was on magic mushrooms when editing those last couple of seasons. Hurwitz needs to embrace what this show was and stop trying to be so bloody conceited.

pixelburp

I dunno, I think that last season was so bad it dipped well below even mediocre comedy on TV now. I suspect anyone who hadn't seen the show before would seriously wonder what the fuss was about ...

kerplun k

pixelburp wrote: »

I dunno, I think that last season was so bad it dipped well below even mediocre comedy on TV now. I suspect anyone who hadn't seen the show before would seriously wonder what the fuss was about ...

I can’t argue against that. My love for the original shows and these characters gives me a biased view. I’m just happy to spend a bit more time with these characters, even if it is just a half baked attempt from Hurwitz to stay relevant.

pixelburp

kerplun k wrote: »

I can’t argue against that. My love for the original shows and these characters gives me a biased view. I’m just happy to spend a bit more time with these characters, even if it is just a half baked attempt from Hurwitz to stay relevant.

Yup, that's how I started, wanting to spend some time with the Bluths, who I'd come to love in their own ways. This fifth season they've just felt... too long in the tooth. TBH most of the actors felt like they were phoning it in, which didn't help either

Penn

pixelburp wrote: »

Yup, that's how I started, wanting to spend some time with the Bluths, who I'd come to love in their own ways. This fifth season they've just felt... too long in the tooth. TBH most of the actors felt like they were phoning it in, which didn't help either

At least there was more than one of them in the same room at a time. Though obvious Lindsay wasn't there

JP Liz V1

Real life couple Cobie Smulders and Taran Killam join

https://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/1047673-cobie-smulders-and-taran-killam-cast-in-arrested-development-season-5b

pixelburp

Rest of season 5 popped up today, for those interested.

Penn

Finished it earlier. Better than the first half of season 5, but still pretty bad for the most part. Maeby and Gob save it. Also, they must have rewrote a huge portion of it because the dubbing was beyond awful and there was so much of it, to the point I almost thought it would turn out to be a meta joke involving the Chinese.

It had a few laughs in it, but at this stage, it's time to end it.

pixelburp

Watched the first episode from that back half and bloody hell, it was torture. Think this has become relegated to a show left burbling in the background while I do something else.

loyatemu

Haven't watched anything of S5, is it worse than S4? (I thought the remixed S4 was OK, but still a long way from the quality of the first 2 seasons)

EPAndlee

Finished it today, didn't think it was that bad. Tobias and his way with words gave a few laughs like wise with Gob. Overall I think it's well overdue to pull the plug on this show

Roar

Penn wrote: »

Finished it earlier. Better than the first half of season 5, but still pretty bad for the most part. Maeby and Gob save it. Also, they must have rewrote a huge portion of it because the dubbing was beyond awful and there was so much of it, to the point I almost thought it would turn out to be a meta joke involving the Chinese.

It had a few laughs in it, but at this stage, it's time to end it.

Yeah the dubbing was abysmal. It was blatantly obvious. They were using complete different takes to what was being shown on screen.

I laughed a lot during the second lot of episodes. Still not classic AD but enjoyable nonetheless.

Biggest laugh for me was

The Guilty Guys. “You paid us to plead *not* guilty??”

Frank O. Pinion

There's always been (bad) dubbing in the show. Always.

"Best 17K Mom and Dad ever spent!" https://i.redd.it/eamfoxaumsm21.jpg

Pronouncing "God" as "Jode".

"Howard you like me now, Dad?"

There was some hilarious stuff this season.

The entirety of Michael being a suspect in Lucille 2's murder, beginning with the first episode of season 4, was building up to that moment where

his chicken dance

was finally revealed.

kerplun k

It’s an incoherent mess yet I still find myself laughing at some the lines.

Tobias‘s double entendres are still hilarious.

Will Arnett looks a hot mess which I think adds to Job as he looks more pathetic than ever and Lucille is always great.

It’s a dam shame too see how far this has falling.

Unfortunately I think this chicken has seen it’s last dance.

Penn

I think the main problem is with the first few seasons, it was ultimately about the families relationships with each other. Being thrown together and having to learn how to get along, fix grievances etc. Gob seeking Michael's approval. Michael trying to be a good father. Maeby's relationship with her parents. George & Lucille's relationship.

Now because of season 4 where they were all separated, the stories mainly revolve around their own stuff, occasionally intertwining but it's not about the Bluths, it's about the Bluths' individual stories. Their relationships with each other have become secondary, or in some cases non-existent.

I don't see how they could bring it back. To be honest, I'd prefer for Mitch Hurwitz to start a new show with a clean slate.

pixelburp

Yeah, there's way more "plot" in this series and it's meandering twaddle of the highest order.

I'm giving up myself; three episodes in and it's just so awful. Kinda sorry I pinged the thread to let folks know this was out

kerplun k

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

The entirety of Michael being a suspect in Lucille 2's murder, beginning with the first episode of season 4, was building up to that moment where

his chicken dance

was finally revealed.

Funniest part of the whole series. Probably the only bit I cracked up.

mloc123

kerplun k wrote: »

Will Arnett looks a hot mess which I think adds to Job as he looks more pathetic than ever and Lucille is always great.

He looks strange, bloated or something?

Penn

mloc123 wrote: »

He looks strange, bloated or something?

Just age I think. He barely looked like he'd aged between Seasons 3 and 4. I guess it hit him between Seasons 4 and 5. Started to look a lot more like Steve Holt

STEVE HOLT!

pixelburp

Yup, I think Arnett is just hitting middle-age a lot harder than the other cast. Bateman, Cross & Hale all look about the same, bar an extra line or two, ditto Tambor & Walter. DeRossi of course fought age through surgery. Alia Shawkat looks like a grown woman now - obviously - but it's quite jarring how much she has changed even between seasons 4 and 5.

mloc123

The series was okay, but the story is pretty disjointed and feels like it has gone on forever at this stage? Unsure what will happen next, I kinda hoped that they would wrap the entire thing up into a satisfactory ending.. but they didn't

Penn

mloc123 wrote: »

The series was okay, but the story is pretty disjointed and feels like it has gone on forever at this stage? Unsure what will happen next, I kinda hoped that they would wrap the entire thing up into a satisfactory ending.. but they didn't

I think they did in a way.

Michael finally learned that he's just as bad as the rest of them, so no longer feels obliged to stick around and save them from themselves. He's finally able to go off with George Michael and leave them behind. Aside from that, nearly everyone's relationships with each other are repaired and most of the stories have come to their conclusions (FakeBlock, Gob/Tony, the Chinese, Maeby in the old folk's home, whatever the f*ck Tobias' story has been for Season 5). Except now it's obvious Buster is legit crazy and will probably be going to jail for murder, but there's nowhere really for that story to go either.

I wouldn't say it's a satisfactory ending, but unlike most other seasons, it did have an ending, and it's why I think (hope) they'll leave it at that.

pixelburp

Finished it off this evening in a hurry, and yeah that was rubbish. So disappointing that a show once regarded as one of the great sitcoms has come to this. Hopefully that'll be that

Frank O. Pinion

pixelburp wrote: »

Finished it off this evening in a hurry, and yeah that was rubbish

You confined yourself to hating it, having it on as "background TV", even the Netflix seasons are not "background TV" and are full of great quotes.

"At least she never tried to sleep with any of my boyf-oh, no, wait, Steve Holt. Ah, but he's family."

Almost all of the stories colliding in one big "there's always money in the banana stand" call back.

Inside. Outside. Inside. Outside. What a great running (walking) gag.

I love that in the opening of S5E15 Lindsay is singing Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks on what is supposed to be her and Michael's 14th birthday. She's adopted though and is actually 3 years older than him, meaning she actually is 17 in the scene.

I said it before, but whole point of the Netflix seasons is Michael's chicken dance! The footage of it shown in season 5 is from when they filmed season 4.

"I'm the worst Bluth." "Oh Michael. GOB's the worst."

"Where is that from? Must be from South Park."

Buster: But Oscar and I are living in the attic. I mean that's because I'm a wanted man.
GOB: Well that's impossible, you weren't even a wanted child.

Season 5 definitely would have been received better if it released all at once. A lot of it is quite brilliant.

J. Marston

It's good and still snappier than 95% of sitcoms out there but the gap in quality between the Netflix seasons and the original three is large. Still enjoyed it though.

pixelburp

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

You confined yourself to hating it, having it on as "background TV", even the Netflix seasons are not "background TV" and are full of great quotes.
.

Ah g'way with you, if it makes you feel better I watched the episodes with full cognition and attention cos I had some spare time, but still found them poor. :rolleyes:

Still some great lines here and there for sure, but that's a far cry from the production line of gags the original run had going for it. 46 minutes for the last episode was a crazy length for a sitcom: and as someone here mentioned, the rambling plot was probably an offshoot of the disjointed 4th season, when the cast were split doing their own thing.

*Shrug* it's done, and that'll probably be it. The odd chuckle here and there but a lot of comedic radio silence too IMO.

Frank O. Pinion

pixelburp wrote: »

Ah g'way with you, if it makes you feel better I watched the episodes with full cognition and attention cos I had some spare time, but still found them poor. :rolleyes:

pixelburp wrote: »

Watched the first episode from that back half and bloody hell, it was torture. Think this has become relegated to a show left burbling in the background while I do something else.

The value of someone's opinion who's not evening properly watching the show is worthless. You would have missed loads of jokes and funny lines. You had already judged the show based on season 4 and the first half of season 5. If you don't like the show anymore, fine, but I'm debating the point that it was "rubbish", when there was a MASSIVE amount of funny lines and ideas. I still found the show hilarious. Debate the things I quoted. Are they not funny? If you don't enjoy some of them, the show is simply not for you.

G'way with you.

kerplun k

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

The value of someone's opinion who's not evening properly watching the show is worthless. You would have missed loads of jokes and funny lines. You had already judged the show based on season 4 and the first half of season 5. If you don't like the show anymore, fine, but I'm debating the point that it was "rubbish", when there was a MASSIVE amount of funny lines and ideas. I still found the show hilarious. Debate the things I quoted. Are they not funny? If you don't enjoy some of them, the show is simply not for you.

G'way with you.

The only thing your killing is my battery.

But in all seriousness, I’d echo what most of what Pixel said and I did give the show my undivided attention.

There’s no two ways about it, season 4 & 5 were a hot mess.

Frank O. Pinion

kerplun k wrote: »

There’s no two ways about it, season 4 & 5 were a hot mess.

Definitely not as good as the first three seasons, no, but just not as bad as some reviews and people online make it seem. Plenty of funny stuff, bizarre to label the whole thing "rubbish" or "torture".

pixelburp

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

The value of someone's opinion who's not evening properly watching the show is worthless. You would have missed loads of jokes and funny lines. You had already judged the show based on season 4 and the first half of season 5. If you don't like the show anymore, fine, but I'm debating the point that it was "rubbish", when there was a MASSIVE amount of funny lines and ideas. I still found the show hilarious. Debate the things I quoted. Are they not funny? If you don't enjoy some of them, the show is simply not for you.

G'way with you.

You're reading way too much into a flippant attempt at comedy / hyperbolic comparison that the show is far from ... whatever the TV equivalent of unputdownable is. Season 5 was baggy, overlong, badly paced and often, simply not funny (eg, everything with Dusty, Gobs stammering and gay panic lines, George Snrs insecurity, the entire of Tobias' scenes, double entendres notwithstanding). Made more frustrating because the season 4 redux, 22 minute runtime n all, worked brilliantly and made the fourth season retroactively work better.

Yes I have watched the entirety of season 5.2, fully attentive to its jokes or threads, and still found it wanting. Lucille was still on form - especially any scenes with Michael as was often the case in the original run - but like I said, a scattering of good lines didn't make the overall experience enjoyable.

Let's agree to disagree here because you're being weirdly over intense about a AD fan simply finding this new season ... well yes, a bit rubbish. This show is for me, I love it dearly and those first 3 seasons are some of the best TV comedy written, but *shrug* it all felt a bit tired.