Season 4 of Arrested Development marks a turning point in the history of the series. While the first 3 seasons delighted a large community of fans, the sequel seriously divided loyal viewers. But whether you are disappointed or still under the spell, the sitcom intrigues by its originality. And an entire industry could now follow his example.
Flashback. In 2013, Arrested Development is a television series that had some success in the 2000s. It' s 3 critically acclaimed seasons, 53 episodes of incredible richness and 1210 minutes of gags galore. It's actors like Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera and David Cross in the cast. It's low audiences, but a large community of very invested fans. So at the announcement of the release of a fourth season after 7 years of absence, it's madness. The return of the beloved sitcom, awaited as the messiah.Except that here, the recipe is different this time.
Difficult shooting conditions
First of all, you should know that since the beginning of Arrested Development, the careers of the main actors have taken off. We no longer present Jason Bateman (Juno, How to kill his boss?, Ozark…), and Michael Cera (Juno, Supergrave, Scott Pilgrim…), who appear in many American blockbusters. Will Arnett made a small name for himself with roles in Flaked, The Great Lego Adventure or BoJack Horseman. And finally, we regularly have the opportunity to see Portia de Rossi (Scandal, Ally McBeal, Santa Clarita Diet...), David Cross (Pitch Perfect 2, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt…) and Jeffrey Tambor (Transaprent, Very Bad Trip 3…) on the screen.
Between all these new projects, promos, interviews… Bringing together the entire cast is downright a miracle. The team had to laboriously juggle the different schedules of the actors, which had the effect of delaying the realization of the series. In the end, season 4 took more than a year and a half to be shot. And to overcome the problem of the unavailability of each, the producer Mitchell Hurwitz made the decision to reserve each episode to a particular character. A good idea from an organizational point of view but a somewhat poor solution once broadcast on the screen.
Because that was the strength of Arrested Development. The interactions between all these protagonists more crazy than each other, thus creating impossible misunderstandings, trademark of the series. The sitcom loses what made its wealth. We may be a fan, but it shows through the episodes. And it's heavy.
A first version… ephemeral
Arrested Development is reborn from its ashes thanks to the intervention of Netflix which buys the rights of the series in 2011. Season 4 was released in 2013, 7 years after the end of the sitcom. 15 episodes a little flat where we wonder where the magic of the series went. The nostalgic effect is not enough and fans and critics do not hide their discontent. The story could have stopped There.
But a few years later, the streaming platform makes a singular decision: organize a remix of this famous season 4 to win back disappointed fans. It was then that a second version was put online in early May 2018, just in time for Cinco de Cuatro (a recurring event in the series). Renamed Arrested Development: Fateful Consequencies, the season is completely reassembled, embellished with new comments from Ron Howard, the voice-over of the series.
Today, it is this re-released version that is presented as the official sequel on Netflix. However, the first version is still available on the platform. It is still necessary to have the idea to dig a little in the teaser tab and trailers. Anyway, the message is clear: forget the first version, it's the second one to watch!
A first in the history of the audiovisual industry
Whether or not we adhere to this new strategy, we must welcome the risk-taking. This is a world first in the history of the audiovisual industry! Reshaping an entire season just by making a new edit is unheard of.
Of course, this is reminiscent of George Lucas' modifications on Star Wars. And Netflix is not at its first time in terms of innovation. We remember in particular his entry at the Cannes Film Festival last year with Okja, thus calling into question the very definition of cinema. But this new initiative could well be the first stone of a revolution in the cultural industry. If this becomes a habit, we are entitled to ask the question: will future film productions have a limited lifespan in the future?
If this total editorial freedom becomes a new trend, the world of series and more broadly cinema will be profoundly disrupted. More than just a process, this phenomenon marks the beginning of a new era of content production. Especially since this risks being democratized with a behemoth like Netflix that owns not only the rights but also the exclusivity of the broadcast of the series.
For example, Vulture wonders about the potential excesses of such a technique. How far will we go in the future? Would the shocking scenes of 13 Reasons Why, which caused controversy because directly addressed to a teenage audience sensitive to this kind of images, have disappeared under pressure from worried parents? Could this turn into some form of modern censorship in the future? Or on the contrary, does it represent infinite possibilities of creation, a bit like sampling or remixing in music? The question remains open.
In the end, Arrested Development S4, what gives?
In the end, we could see this latest version in the following way: Arrested Development has given itself a facelift. A facelift , it gives a little youth, it erases unsightly marks, it harmonizes. But a facelift is not everything, it remains pure and simple appearance.
While there are clear improvements, V2 does not solve all the problems of V1. The scenes were not filmed a second time, so the characters do not meet more than before. However, Tobaias' puchlines , usually exceptional, fall flat when he finds himself away from the rest of the Bluth family. The character of Michael, usually indispensable, suddenly finds himself useless or even embarrassing.
In short, Arrested Development loses its identity. From a real UFO providing a whirlwind of jokes per second, we move on to an alien that is difficult to understand. If the series falls back on its feet thanks to this redistricting, the frantic pace that made the charm of the series is not at the rendezvous. To keep everything understandable, the narrator constantly gives feedback on what happened before. So much so that we lose track. The pace is too hard to keep up and the result is a huge mess. As a result, jokes have less effect, even running gags that are reminiscent of the first three seasons…
However, we find some of our favorite guests like Bob Lablaw or Tony Wonder (Ben Stiller) and others make their entry into the series (Terry Crews). Unfortunately, this is not enough to transport us…
In the end, it is not without disappointment that we tackle this new season that does not meet the criteria of demand of the fans. Nevertheless, purists will still be happy to find their beloved Bluth family, not to mention the running gags that make all the success of the series. While season 5 has just been released on Netflix, we wonder if it too will suffer the same fate in case the followers are once again disappointed…
