Tomorrow, season 4 of Arrested Development re-hits Netflix in 22 minute or so length episodes. They re-edited all the episodes to make it so they can sell it to syndication, which prefers that episodes do not have to be watched in order.
Ron Howard has added new narration, which I remember seeing him record 3 years ago(they’ve been sitting on this a long time).
Season 5 hits Netflix soon. Like, I think it’s going to be up by June/July. And I believe they got everyone for each episode so they could make normal ones this time.
I’m glad they re-cut it. I absolutely did not like (won’t say “hated”) it. Too hard to follow, too gimmicky. Hopefully it’ll feel more like the AD of old.
Holy crap! There’s a season 5? How did I not know about this? And wasn’t the point of Season 4 that it was completely non-chronological, so you didn’t really have to watch it in order? I sure as heck didn’t. (That is to say, I watched a few episodes in order, but then realized it was completely disjointed chronologically, and it didn’t really matter what order you watched it in, as opposed to a more standard series where stories build chronologically and if you watch episode 10 before episode 1, you’re completely lost, whereas with season 4, it didn’t really matter: you were supposed to be a little lost no matter which episode you started with.)
I’ll also say that Season 4 did not work for me on first viewing. Maybe I would appreciate it more if I rewatched the original cut again once I understood what was going on.
The problem I had was that the episodes didn’t go anywhere. Admittedly a great thing about Arrested Development was the call backs to earlier episodes, but in this case you had to remember everything across all the episodes rather than follow on from the last one. I watched it too sporadically over too long a period of time to make the connections.
League of Gentlemen series 3 - the final of the main run - used the same technique. Different characters’ stories were pursued, generally not intersecting until a big set-piece car crash at the end of each episode.
I thought it (League) was brilliant, because your understanding of each character’s story was modified by the following revelation from another character’s perspective. Arrested Development’s Series 4 attempt, to my mind didn’t work quite as well, but still hats off to them for trying and getting it pretty right, if not perfect.
On non-linear narratives generally, i heard (without feeling compelled to bother looking it up) that you could reprogram your Tarantino movies to play scenes in proper chronological order in LaserDisc.
As I remember (and I haven’t watched it in a long time), the problem wasn’t in the concept, but the execution. Maybe editing it down to 22 minutes might make it better?
Boy, it’s choppy. They didn’t film any new footage, so it’s a hard job to edit the whole thing into regular episodes. Tons of new narration to try to make sense out of it.
The old version is still there, but you have to go to “Trailers and other” or something to find it. That might be temporary, since they’re obviously promoting the re-cut.
I’m about half-way through the re-cut episodes. I’m liking it better, but it still isn’t as top-notch as the seasons of yore. I’m hoping the new season is better than this one. A lot of the scenarios feel forced. Like GOB’s thing with Egg.
