Arrested Development remains one of the few shows where even the slightest rustle of a rumour can provoke a fan frenzy. It’s no surprise then that the revelation from executive producer Brian Grazer, in an interview with Grantland’s Bill Simmons, that the show is to return for a 17-episode season at some point in the near future was greeted with whoops of joy and chicken dance gifs on social media.
Never mind that Grazer’s announcement was about as vague as they come. “We’re going to do another 17 episodes. So stay tuned for Arrested Development,” was all he had to say on the matter, before the conversation moved on to how great Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lawrence are. Conspicuously missing was a release date or even a confirmed network, with Netflix refusing to comment on the news. Meanwhile, Grazer’s Arrested Development collaborators – the cast, executive producer Ron Howard and showrunner Mitchell Hurwitz (who initially said that the show might return as a movie) – have all remained conspicuously silent.
Yet, for all the scantness of information, Grazer’s disclosure is at least a step in the right direction, with that very specific episode order suggesting that things have moved on from the nebulous assurances given by Will Arnett and Netflix head Ted Sarandos last year. And, despite Netflix’s coyness on the matter, the safe money is on the new season ending up there: the show’s fourth season brought a substantial number of eyeballs to the streaming service when it launched in 2013, and Hurwitz has since signed a multi-year creative deal with Netflix (though it remains unclear whether a commitment to new Arrested Development makes up part of that deal).
When we will actually get to see this season is a knottier question to unpick. Arrested Development has one of the most in-demand casts around, and rounding them up for the show’s fourth season was reportedly a task akin to herding cats, with the show’s creators only able to film a few scenes with all leads present. If anything they’re even busier now: Jeffrey Tambor has a regular gig on the excellent Transparent, Portia de Rossi has a recurring role on Scandal, while the rest of the cast are involved in a dizzying number of film and TV projects.
There’s also the difficult question of whether we actually want or need any more Arrested Development. Season four wasn’t terribly well-received, its individual character-focused episodes and jigsaw puzzle plot lines (both decisions partly made out of necessity due to cast commitments) confused rather than amused some critics.
Hurwitz’s forthcoming “chronological recut” of season four suggests that he may have taken some of those negative reactions on board, and, in truth it wasn’t quite as bad as the naysayers made out: the Tobias and Gob episodes contained several of my most favourite Arrested Development moments (including a near-perfect Entourage parody). What’s more, there’s a great whacking cliffhanger that needs resolving, with Buster arrested for the murder of Lucille Austero (Liza Minnelli), and Michael and George Michael’s father-son relationship on the rocks. As fans of Deadwood can attest, there’s nothing worse than a lack of closure, so hopefully we’ll be finding out what happens on the next Arrested Development sooner rather than later.
