Arrested Development should end its run after its deeply disappointing season 5. The once revered sitcom no longer has anything left to say, and it feels increasingly obsolete when compared to the critically acclaimed half-hour comedies of the Peak TV era. Netflix barely promoted the release of the second half of season 5, partly due to the harassment allegations made against series star Jeffrey Tambor, but the streaming giant likely realized what viewers and critics are finding out now - it’s a season of television with no discernible purpose, and the laughs have become too few and far between.
It would have been difficult to imagine this scenario just a few years ago. When Netflix announced they were reviving the beloved Fox series, fans were overjoyed; the show never got a fair shake on the network, and the creative freedom promised by the streaming service seemed like a dream come true for series creator Mitchell Hurwitz and his wildly imaginative cast and crew. However, in the years since the show’s initial cancellation, the cast became exponentially more popular, and getting them all together to film a season of television together was untenable. This logistical issue resulted in the polarizing Arrested Development season 4, where each episode concentrated largely on one character, as the overarching plot being pieced together with each episode serving as non-linear puzzle pieces. Some viewers and critics found this a creatively bold innovation, while many others thought the format was too different from the original run.
It was another five years before the first half of Arrested Development season 5 debuted, returning to the show’s original format and with the characters interacting with each other much more. But the series had clearly lost a step in the intervening years, and the second half of season 5 had the dour feeling of an obligatory march. Plenty of great shows with long runs have had down years creatively and recovered, so why not hold out hope that Arrested Development could do the same? Let’s look at a few of the mitigating factors.
- This Page: The Problems Arrested Development Faces Page 2: Why Arrested Development Will Never Be A Good As It Was
Arrested Development’s Cast Schedules Are A Nightmare
Even assuming Hurwitz actually has a viable idea for Arrested Development season 6 and Netflix is game, the logistics of getting the cast together to make a full season of television are only getting harder as time goes on. Jason Bateman is currently directing, producing, and starring in Netflix’s popular drama series Ozark. Will Arnett has become one of Hollywood’s greatest renaissance men, voicing the title character in Bojack Horseman, Batman in The Lego Movie and its spinoffs, and even serving as a judge on The Gong Show revival (he’s also a producer on that one).
Virtually everyone else in the cast stays incredibly busy, with the notable exception of Portia de Rossi, who retired from acting in 2017; she appeared only sporadically in the fifth season of Arrested Development, and would be unlikely to sign on for another full run.
Getting the cast to make time in their schedules for a beloved cult hit would be one thing, but as the show’s popularity and regard has declined, it seems harder to imagine every one of them would be excited to come back for more.
The Jeffrey Tambor Allegations
Tambor has no announced projects since the allegations surfaced, and it’s hard to imagine that’s going to change anytime soon as the Me Too movement continues to gain cultural prominence. It’s possible another season of Arrested Development could be made without Tambor’s George and Oscar Bluth, but it’s hard to imagine anyone would be particularly excited about that.
Page 2 of 2: Why Arrested Development Will Never Be A Good As It Was
Arrested Development Has Become Obsolete
Arrested Development season 5 feels like it’s happening in a different era. It actually is, for one thing; the season is set in 2015, with plenty of knowing jokes about Hillary Clinton’s surefire presidential campaign and the implausibility of a Mexican border wall. But even more than that, Arrested Development feels like an artifact from another time. The half-hour comedy has evolved rapidly over the last decade, with shows like Atlanta, Barry, and Arnett’s own Bojack Horseman blurring the lines between comedy and drama, often surpassing the artistic merits of the more traditionally critically acclaimed hourlong dramas. When weighed against shows like that, Arrested Development very much shows its age, relying on gonzo energy, clever wordplay, and decidedly outdated gay jokes to obscure the fact it no longer seems to have any creative center.
The irony here is palpable. Arrested Development couldn’t survive on Fox in the early ’00s because it was ahead of its time. Despite the fact it won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series for all three years of its Fox run, the ratings were anemic, as audiences just weren’t quite ready for the light speed pacing, complicated plotting, and clever inside jokes that would eventually dominate later sitcoms like 30 Rock. When the show returned in 2013, it attempted to evolve with new non-linear format - even if that evolution was provoked by real-world scheduling issues. But when that innovation was met with less than universal praise, the first half of season 5 indicated something of a regression; with the usual format reinstated, it was made all the more clear that Arrested Development had lost a step.
Remarkably, the second half of season 5 is even more joyless, with the cast clearly going through the motions in service of a storyline that feels amazingly phoned in. The show was also still not quite able to get everyone in the same location at the same time, resulting in more than a few scenes where characters are supposed to be talking to each other face to face but clearly aren’t, an ugly production flaw in a show revered for its editing.
There was simply no trace of the pandemonium that welcomed the first Netflix season this time around. It’s easy to imagine the streaming giant would have preferred the negative reviews of Arrested Development season 4 to what greeted the back half of season 5 - cultural and critical silence.
Arrested Development’s legacy is in no real trouble. The first two seasons are essentially flawless, and it influenced an entire generation of comedy writers in a way few shows ever do. It helped turn Will Arnett and Michael Cera into household names and revived Bateman’s career. It’s no surprise that the cast feel such an acute loyalty to the show and bend over backwards to make new episodes whenever possible.
But it’s time to move on. The conclusion of Arrested Development season 5 is far from an ideal ending to one of the best sitcoms of all time, but the show already gave us a great ending with the season 3 finale, one that it’s hard to imagine the series ever topping at this point. It’s hard to accept that the show could go out with such a whimper, but it’s preferable to it continuing on in relative anonymity among Netflix’s endless wave of original series. Arrested Development has given fans countless laughs over the last 16 years, but it’s time for the show to follow Michael and George Michael’s lead by getting in the nearest stair car and leaving the Bluth family in the rearview mirror.
