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[Boem]

http://bgr.com/2015/06/03/arrested-development-netflix-season-five-release/

So Brian Grazer recently commented on the team finally getting ready to move onto Season 5 in the near future, and now he has given us a bit of a timeframe.

While speaking on Adam Carolla’s podcast this week, Arrested Development Executive Producer Brian Grazer relayed that filming on the show’s fifth season is slated to begin sometime around January or February of next year, with a release date likely coming about four months later. As a result, it stands to reason that the next season of AD will premiere on Netflix sometime in mid-2016, likely in or around June. Previously, Grazer said that the fifth season will include 17 brand new episodes.

“Netflix is determined to do more episodes,” Grazer said, “so we’re going to do more episodes. It’s a lot of juggling of all these stars’ lives.”

Can't wait for this. Season 4 wasn't what I expected, but I learned to love (parts of) it. They did seem very aware of the criticism that resulted from keeping the characters seperate for most of their episodes in the previous season, so I wouldn't be surprised if they went back to the original format - as long as the actors are available of course.

 

[Shaanyboi]

glad it's happening

season 4 suffered from structure and characters being all separated for long periods of time, not so much because it was any less ridiculous

hopefully this is a more traditional format

 

[The Real Abed]

As long as they return to the original format it'll be great.

 

[Nappuccino]

Any word on that chronological cut Mitch has been working on? I'd sure like to see it . . . but I guess it'll release a few months before season 5 to keep our appetites going.

 

[Grinchy]

Hell yeah, I actually liked season 4 a lot. I know it gets some criticism but it felt like a very solid season to me.

 

[oatmeal]

I loved season 4 coming out. A few of us on here binged through the whole thing. When I finished my wife was getting up and we started watching over. I made about 3 eps in before passing out.

 

[Cheesemeister]

Taste the happy, Michael.

 

[Drifters]

Don't fuck this up guys.... Just... don't fuck this up. If they try what they did with the character focus I will literally starting wearing jean shorts under my underwear.

 

[Oreoleo]

As long as they return to the original format it'll be great.

Basically. 4 is a stain on the legacy of the series, but I believe in the Koogler to right the ship.

 

[Mike Works]

I stopped watching halfway through Season 4 out of depression for what it had become. I still haven't finished it, and Arrested Development is one of my three favorite shows of all time. Hopefully they revert back to the old format.

 

[quesalupa]

I actually liked season 4 so consider me excited.

 

[kiguel182]

I loved what they did with season 4 but it's obvious it wasn't as well received.

Hopefully they just do what they feel best for season 5 instead of doing the original format just because.

 

[Zeyphersan]

Any word on that chronological cut Mitch has been working on? I'd sure like to see it . . . but I guess it'll release a few months before season 5 to keep our appetites going.

Also wondering about this

 

[kiguel182]

I stopped watching halfway through Season 4 out of depression for what it had become. I still haven't finished it, and Arrested Development is one of my three favorite shows of all time. Hopefully they revert back to the old format.

Not finishing it it's like stop listening to a joke before the punchline and then saying it wasn't a great joke. You are supposed to binge whatch it as a whole.

 

[SoulUnison]

It's happening *and* it's going to be longer than Season 4?

Yay!

I feel like they need to pump out as much of this show as they can get (without sacrificing quality) because Jessica Walter's age is starting to worry me and there just isn't a show without Lucille.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Not finishing it it's like stop listening to a joke before the punchline and then saying it wasn't a great joke. You are supposed to binge whatch it as a whole.

In this case yes, however it is true that it's a suboptimal format. It's not unreasonable to give up on a show if after 4-5 episodes you're really not liking it. IMO the payoff for AD S4 is worth it, but I can also understand how hard that might be to swallow for someone. Like the people who say "Oh, final fantasy 13 gets good, you just have to stick with it for 20 hours".

 

[CloudWolf]

I'm hyped.

Also, Season 4 gave us this and therefore it's awesome.

 

[Aselith]

“Netflix is determined to do more episodes,” Grazer said, “so we’re going to do more episodes.”

Sounds like a winning formula

 

[Akahige]

Grazer said that the fifth season will include 17 brand new episodes.

I'd take 6-8 if it meant the whole cast could film together, I did enjoy Season 4 after watching the entire Season but the magic was missing in a lot of places due to the messed up way it was set up.

 

[Mike Works]

Not finishing it it's like stop listening to a joke before the punchline and then saying it wasn't a great joke. You are supposed to binge whatch it as a whole.

That's such a stupid thing to say.

 

[RoadHazard]

Sweet! S4 wasn't as good as the first three, but still great IMO.

 

[RoadHazard]

That's such a stupid thing to say.

It's very true with how S4 was made though. It can be pretty confusing along the way, but it all comes together into a great thing in the end.

 

[Aiii]

S4 was great if only for this gag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYrwTVsckmI

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

Actually get the cast together, and I'm sold. Season 4 was better than 99% of the sitcoms out there, but it just wasn't quite up to par with the quality I've come to expect from this series.

 

[Boem]

Even if it was born out of necessity, I do appreciate the balls they had to have to try and do something completely different with season 4. Like I said before, it didn't completely work for me and I do prefer the original format, but they did make some very inspired choices for that season. It still had some incredible and smart moments, even if some of it fell flat.

That said, if I was the person who had to choose if season 5 follows season 4's framework or what it used to be, I'd go for the second option.

 

[AniHawk]

hey, community ends and arrested development starts back up again? that's pretty awesome. my biggest problem with season 4 outside of two particularly weak episodes is that it seemed to be wanting some sort of resolution with another season or a movie or something and then that didn't happen.

 

[CloudWolf]

It's very true with how S4 was made though. It can be pretty confusing along the way, but it all comes together into a great thing in the end.

Yep, there are a few jokes that don't hit until six or seven episodes later since almost the entire season took place at the same time. If you quit half-way, you're missing a ton of the better jokes in the season.

Even if it was born out of necessity, I do appreciate the balls they had to have to try and do something completely different with season 4. Like I said before, it didn't completely work for me and I do prefer the original format, but they did make some very inspired choices for that season. It still had some incredible and smart moments, even if some of it fell flat.

I'd even go as far as to say the AD S4 is probably one of the most experimental pieces of television I have ever seen. The entire concept of the show could only have worked in our current age. Jokes that only hit seven episodes later? An entire season that takes place at the same time? No television show has ever done something like that and Glazer and Howard said 'fuck it' and just did it. It's basically the tv equivalent of an experimental music album. Not everyone will appreciate it and some will even hate it, but they did something that no one has ever even dared to do before.

 

[Glasshole]

AAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW

YIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSS

 

[Boem]

hey, community ends and arrested development starts back up again? that's pretty awesome.

Thinking about it some more, it wouldn't surprise me if Dan Harmon ended up writing for the new AD season. Community is finished (apart from the vague promise of a movie somewhere in the future), and he's got nothing else that we know of coming up apart from Rick & Morty (the scripts of which are almost done at this point). He's friends with Mitch Hurwitz in real life, Mitch was on Harmontown and on Community a couple of times, and Dan had a cameo in season 4 of AD. There is quite some common ground between their sense of comedy as well.

 

[kiguel182]

In this case yes, however it is true that it's a suboptimal format. It's not unreasonable to give up on a show if after 4-5 episodes you're really not liking it. IMO the payoff for AD S4 is worth it, but I can also understand how hard that might be to swallow for someone. Like the people who say "Oh, final fantasy 13 gets good, you just have to stick with it for 20 hours".

Yeah, I understand that and I usually dread the whole "stick with it it will get better" but I feel this is a special case since the whole purpose of the season was that. Where the first episodes where just setups, it ramped a little bit and then a big pay off. It was designed that way.

I get that the lack of family mechanics made it less enjoyable at parts, there where episodes that I didn't enjoy as much and of course you can not like it but at least watch the whole thing. What bothers me most is the "I watched a couple of episodes so this sucks" when the format of it demands you to watch it all.

That's such a stupid thing to say.

You didn't finish watching so why would you even know it's stupid? You have no basis to disprove what I've said.

 

[TimorousPanda]

That's such a stupid thing to say.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[impact]

Actually get the cast together, and I'm sold. Season 4 was better than 99% of the sitcoms out there, but it just wasn't quite up to par with the quality I've come to expect from this series.

hell no

They're gonna have to go back to the 1-3 format if they expect me to watch. Season 4 was trash and the Lindsay episode is possibly the worst episode of comedy TV I've ever seen.

 

[CassSept]

Season 4 was worth it but it takes some time to get going.

One huge problem was episode length. 20 minutes per episode is perfect for a sitcom. In season 4 most episodes went for over half an hour which was simply too long.

Then again, I think the first half of season 3 was worse than season 4, so there's that. British arc was bad and the show tried too hard at being wacky and self-referential.

 

[Bluth54]

Hopefully they have multiple characters per episode even if they can't get every character in every episode this season instead of a single character focused episodes with small cameos from other characters, season 4 was such a disappointment.

 

[dark_inferno]

S4 was great if only for this gag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYrwTVsckmI

Spoiler for ending of Season 4 :

Spoiler

Or the punch in the face by George Michael

 

[BUNTING1243]

Thinking about it some more, it wouldn't surprise me if Dan Harmon ended up writing for the new AD season. Community is finished (apart from the vague promise of a movie somewhere in the future), and he's got nothing else that we know of coming up apart from Rick & Morty (the scripts of which are almost done at this point). He's friends with Mitch Hurwitz in real life, Mitch was on Harmontown and on Community a couple of times, and Dan had a cameo in season 4 of AD. There is quite some common ground between their sense of comedy as well.

I remember they were talking about doing a project together. Him and Mitch have similar comedic sensibilities, so them working together could be amazing.

 

[Oreoleo]

Thinking about it some more, it wouldn't surprise me if Dan Harmon ended up writing for the new AD season. Community is finished (apart from the vague promise of a movie somewhere in the future), and he's got nothing else that we know of coming up apart from Rick & Morty (the scripts of which are almost done at this point). He's friends with Mitch Hurwitz in real life, Mitch was on Harmontown and on Community a couple of times, and Dan had a cameo in season 4 of AD. There is quite some common ground between their sense of comedy as well.

God why would you even say this? Now I'm gonna be so bummed when it doesn't happen.

 

[Mike Works]

It's very true with how S4 was made though. It can be pretty confusing along the way, but it all comes together into a great thing in the end.

You didn't finish watching so why would you even know it's stupid? You have no basis to disprove what I've said.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

I've known for ages that the season apparently ties up in a satisfying manner (at least for some people).

What I'm calling stupid is the notion that I should suffer through hours and hours of barren and unfunny episodes because the last episode has a good payoff.

One half hour episode of Arrested Development seasons 1-3 had more laughs than two or more of the new season. Good on you if you found Season 4 funny and you liked how it came together in the end.

But if I told you to watch a full season of a show by saying, "All of the episodes are bad, except for one in the middle and the last one", would you watch it?

 

[TimorousPanda]

I've known for ages that the season apparently ties up in a satisfying manner (at least for some people).

What I'm calling stupid is the notion that I should suffer through hours and hours of barren and unfunny episodes because the last episode has a good payoff.

One half hour episode of Arrested Development seasons 1-3 had more laughs than two or more of the new season. Good on you if you found Season 4 funny and you liked how it came together in the end.

But if I told you to watch a full season of a show by saying, "All of the episodes are bad, except for one in the middle and the last one", would you watch it?

Ah, sorry, didn't understand what you were calling stupid because that is stupid in most cases.

To your question: if you told me that about a season of a show that I found mildly interesting? I definitely wouldn't waste my time.

It's a totally different situation for me in this case because AD is probably my favorite show of all time. I'd suffer through the season to get to the juicy end, especially if other fans encouraged me to do so.

 

[kiguel182]

I've known for ages that the season apparently ties up in a satisfying manner (at least for some people).

What I'm calling stupid is the notion that I should suffer through hours and hours of barren and unfunny episodes because the last episode has a good payoff.

One half hour episode of Arrested Development seasons 1-3 had more laughs than two or more of the new season. Good on you if you found Season 4 funny and you liked how it came together in the end.

But if I told you to watch a full season of a show by saying, "All of the episodes are bad, except for one in the middle and the last one", would you watch it?

First, I don't agree that every episode is bad.

Second, season 4 does not work like a self contained episode so judging one episode like you would another sitcom is not the best way to approach it.

There are bad episodes but they do build on each other and the final stretch of the season (not just the last episode) has a lot of pay off and the punchlines to other episodes.

And again, you can not like it or whatever but since the season was built to be watched in it's entirety to be enjoyed and it only works if you watch it all in a short amount of time then you saying it sucks when you didn't even finish doesn't hold much weight.

 

[Mike Works]

And again, you can not like it or whatever but since the season was built to be watched in it's entirety to be enjoyed and it only works if you watch it all in a short amount of time then you saying it sucks when you didn't even finish doesn't hold much weight.

My saying that a comedic show shouldn't be structured to only be enjoyable if you watch 15 hours of it in the span of days is completely valid.

Obviously comedy is subjective, but it's no stretch to say that the individual season 4 episodes weren't as good as the seasons 1-3 episodes. Again, this is a subjective opinion, but generally I'd argue critics, the public, and fans of the show would agree with that sentiment. Not all of them. But a lot if not most of them.

You can totally build a season of a show to be truly enjoyed via the payoff of the last one or two episodes. That's a valid structure.

BUT if you don't make the episode-by-episode experience nearly as enjoyable, the show will suffer.

So my saying that the show suffered compared to the original seasons because it didn't hold up on an episode-by-episode basis holds a fuckload of weight, in my opinion. If you don't make the first 10 episodes enjoyable or funny (enough) to get me to those last few ones, then you've failed.

And I'll reiterate that I absolutely love Arrested Development as a whole. And I realize why they wrote and shot things the way they did (due to scheduling conflicts). But it didn't work nearly as well as the original three seasons, and I really hope season 5 will revert back to that formula.

 

[Fitts]

I liked season 4. Not as much as the original run, but I liked it. Still, the showrunners are no doubt aware of the criticisms and season 5 should be more of a return to form because of it.

...and even if it's not I won't be disappointed.

 

[Sou Da]

Season 4 somehow ended being "explaining the joke" in audiovisual format. It was almost innovatively terrible.

 

[Bacon]

 

[Hatchtag]

I remember thinking the start up to season 4 was so terrible (oh god, Micheal Cera's some facebook maker now, Andy Richter's in it too much, why does this stupid making a movie subplot have to come up so much) but the pay off ended up being so damn good (Micheal Cera's Fake Block being a complete sham, Andy Richter's multiple roles being used in some really funny ways, Buster being the only person they got movie rights to and them realizing that as he turns out to be the bad guy).

But anyways, since season 4 is supposed to be the first act to a movie, I wonder how much more of that movie season 5 would be.

 

[MrBadger]

Neat, it exists. For what it's worth, I did like season 4 despite its pacing being rather weird. I liked how it all came together at the end after showing every character's perspective. Season 4 was the way it was because of issues getting the cast together and it seems to have finished in such a way that season 5 won't be more of the same.

 

[kiguel182]

My saying that a comedic show shouldn't be structured to only be enjoyable if you watch 15 hours of it in the span of days is completely valid.

Obviously comedy is subjective, but it's no stretch to say that the individual season 4 episodes weren't as good as the seasons 1-3 episodes. Again, this is a subjective opinion, but generally I'd argue critics, the public, and fans of the show would agree with that sentiment. Not all of them. But a lot if not most of them.

You can totally build a season of a show to be truly enjoyed via the payoff of the last one or two episodes. That's a valid structure.

BUT if you don't make the episode-by-episode experience nearly as enjoyable, the show will suffer.

So my saying that the show suffered compared to the original seasons because it didn't hold up on an episode-by-episode basis holds a fuckload of weight, in my opinion. If you don't make the first 10 episodes enjoyable or funny (enough) to get me to those last few ones, then you've failed.

And I'll reiterate that I absolutely love Arrested Development as a whole. And I realize why they wrote and shot things the way they did (due to scheduling conflicts). But it didn't work nearly as well as the original three seasons, and I really hope season 5 will revert back to that formula.

All you say it's valid of course. We could argue if the structure worked or on and how some episodes are weak and harder to watch and all of that.

I still think it should always be judged as a whole and not just individually. In the end you can hate it as a whole too or find that the last episodes don't make up for the worst ones or whatever. All of that is valid and can be an interesting discussion.

But in the end you didn't watch it all and I can't argue that with someone that didn't do that.

For me, I watched it all in one day and it was totally worth it. It was bold and challenging like Arrested Development should be. Arrested Development was never about easy comedy or pay offs and the fact that they took that to an extreme made me super happy about it and the reaction of "I wanted more of the same" does sadden me a little bit.