ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Season 4 Story Details
One of the greatest things that will happen in 2013 will be the return of Arrested Development on Netflix! I'm so happy that a fourth season is on the horizon, and it will be a glorious day when we will be able to watch all the episodes in one sitting. There will be 14 new episodes, and they will be released this May!
We've got some great new information on the series to share with you that comes from USA Today. It mostly focuses on Netflix’s effort to create original content, which is cool, but my interest was focused on what Arrested Development season 4 is going to give us. As previously revealed, each episode will focus on a single character, and only Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman), the level-headed son who holds the clan together, will appear in every one of them. The final episode will include the entire cast, and it will tease the movie. Here's what Mitch Hurwitz revealed...
"The show will look very different," Hurwitz says, and is being assembled as a "very, very complex puzzle" from scenes shot out of sequence over many months.
Though famous for its layered flashbacks and juggling of multiple story lines, held together by Ron Howard's narration, new episodes adopt a different rhythm. "We're not jumping from one thing to another; you're staying with one character," while other cast members appear in smaller roles, and recurring characters played by Henry Winkler and Liza Minnelli, among others, will return. Howard and Brian Grazer, whose Imagine TV is behind the project, will also appear.
"The bigger story is the family has fallen apart at the start of our show," Hurwitz says. "They all went their own way, without Michael holding them together, so they're left to their own devices, and they're not the most successful devices." The season is designed as a "first act to what we eventually want to do, which is a big movie," though there's no guarantee it will ever get made.
"Each individual (episode) kind of depicts what happens in 2006 as the Bluths fled from the law on the Queen Mary" in what was once the series' finale, then explains what's happened to them since and leaves them in the present day, he says.
The true flavor "slowly reveals itself, as the moment you saw in one show will reappear in another show from a different character's perspective," he says. "If people watch it all at once, it will seem like a giant Arrested Development. It's really tailored for Netflix."
Only once did the entire cast reassemble, as the final episode teases a movie by promising an imminent family reunion. "It was such a joy to be back with everybody; it didn't feel like work, it felt like being back with friends," Hurwitz says. "You don't see them all together until you see the movie." But even apart, "I can assure you that the characters are just as damaged, self-involved and self-righteous as ever."
Michael Cera is also a writer on season 4, and I have no doubt it will be amazingly hilarious. I can't wait to see all these crazy characters back in action. This is one of my most anticipated events of the year, and it can't get here soon enough! What do you think about what Hurwitz had to say about the show here? Do you like the direction they are taking it?