Arrested Development is een Amerikaanse komedieserie van Netflix (voorheen FOX). De serie ging in première op 2 november 2003.
Arrested Development gaat over de excentrieke familie Bluth. Michael Bluth tracht samen met zijn zoon, broers en zus het familiebedrijf van de ondergang te redden, nadat zijn vader wegens fraude in de gevangenis komt.
Probably a bit underrated this comedy series and I can imagine that the cause is the first episodes, which are actually not very funny. It all starts rather slowly, but once the momentum is up, the second and third season in particular are a feast for the lover of absurd yet intelligent and at times genius humor. An example of this is the family's new lawyer who makes his appearance sometime in season three after the first one played by Henry Winkler aka "The Fonz" is kicked out. That new lawyer his name is Bob LobLaw but as the name is pronounced in the series you just hear Bob Blah Blah and with that name is played quite regularly and made longer while as a result you just hear Bob Blah Blah Blah Blah etc ... The story, because there is also about the empire of the Bluth family that found its base in a stand on the seawall where frozen bananas are sold on a stick. Or at least what's left after the patriarch of the family George Bluth is caught in fraud and a host of other shady practices. Since George has to go to jail, the family business is continued by the serious son Michael, just about the only one in the family who can be considered normal. You also have his twin sister Lindsay who mainly specializes in spending money, the alcohol addict and manipulative mother Lucille who would sell one of the grandchildren without blinking if she benefited herself, the eldest son Gob (George Oscar Bluth) who especially excels at seducing women and whose main hobby is magic. The third son Byron "Buster" Bluth who is really just crazy and at the same time suffers from just about every conceivable disorder. The husband of Lindsay, Tobias Fünke whose only ambition is to become an actor and therefore does everything for that but is also best known for his very unfortunate and ambiguous statements, the shy son of Michael named George Michael (it was that or Boy George) who is madly in love with Maeby whose name sometimes causes confusion during a conversation, the daughter of Lindsay and Tobias, which is also his niece .. Even though you must have seen the first season because the episodes really connect, the focus is of this series, certainly in the second and third season. Unfortunately, a fourth season was also made as "Netflix Semi Original" that consists of 15 almost identical episodes, each told from a different perspective. Even then, comedies and Netflix turned out not to be a good marriage, a trick that Netflix has repeated several times in recent years. The fourth season is therefore better to leave it for what it is and explains my rather low rating since I always give a score per season, which means that with only 4 units one bad score significantly reduces the average. For anyone who takes the trouble to bite through the first episodes, the rest of this series, with the exception of the last season, is a party that I can recommend.
Hmmm.. I thought the 1st 3 seasons were still funny but season 4 is very disappointing. However, I find it funny that all episodes in 4 flow into each other and are related to each other.