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)