Now this is what you’ve been waiting for: more details to come out of the Arrested Development revival. Today at the TCAs series creator Mitch Hurwitz led a panel that included most of the brilliant ensemble cast–namely, Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, Michael Cera, Jessica Walter, Alia Shawkat, and Jeffrey Tambor. David Cross and Tony Hale, unfortunately, were not present. Hurwitz is still keeping a heavy veil of secrecy on top of the plot, but he did manage to shed some light on what viewers can expect in the new batch of episodes in terms of how they will play out.
Before we get to that, though, the most important news to come out of the panel: Arrested Development premieres on Netflix this May and all 14 episodes (the original order was 10, so this is a more-than-welcome surprise) will go live and be available on Netflix Instant streaming at once. Like installments from its original run, episodes will come in at just under 30 minutes and even though it wasn’t a requirement, curse words will be silenced with the famous Development bleep. So, still no hard date, but May is the month.
It leaked months ago that the new episodes would feature a new storytelling format, and today Hurwitz confirmed and explained the changes. “The only way we could get everyone together for what we’ll call, loosely, an anthology series, was to dedicate each episode to a different character’s point of view,” he said. “That became a fun, entertaining challenge, because we started finding out that the stories would intersect. It’s kind of an evolution of the storytelling that was necessary.” Essentially, viewers should not expect scenes that include all of the Bluths interacting with each other at once. In the old days, such scenes were typically the best ones; stuffing all the Bluths under the same roof made for some classic moments. But Hurwitz is quite confident that the new format will provide equally hilarious moments for fans to discover. “So, you’ll see a scene in one [episode], and then you’ll see a scene again from the other perspective [in another episode] where you’ll get all this new information,” he explained further. De Rossi shared an example without giving too much away. In her character Lindsay’s episode, “We had a great scene where I interpreted my mother’s tone as sarcasm,” she said. “But [we later see in someone else’s episode] she intended something entirely different.” Bateman chimed in as well. “Everybody sort of intermingles throughout each individual person’s episode. There’s plenty of the regular cast that filters through there. But it is a ‘Lindsay’ episode or a ‘Gob’ episode that we guest star in.
So much more after the break.
Bateman later spoke up and corrected an ongoing misconception about the new episodes and at the same time revealed that the long sought after Development movie is an integral part of the show’s comeback. “It was mislabeled early on. It is not ‘season four’; we should probably make that clear,” he said. These installments should be taken as “simply just the first act of what we hope to continue and complete in a movie, which would [serve as] Act 2 and 3. These episodes set that up. One does not work without the other.” He added, however, that “There is certainly a satisfying conclusion to these episodes, if for some unfortunate reason the movie does not happen. But [the episodes and the movie] are all meant to work within each other as a hybrid package of Arrested Development stuff.”
Why all the secrecy around the plot? It’s just a comedy after all, right? Hurwitz explained it’s for the fans. “The spirit of this was to surprise fans with something that they didn’t see coming,” he said. “There was so much talk about the movie that we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to still do the movie but to give everybody this thing they didn’t see coming.” Regarding the show’s original run, “One of the challenges of the show was to always be surprising,” he said. “That was easy to do when no one was watching. We’re really guarding the material to surprise the audience.” The first surprise has come already in an increased episode order. “The idea was, ‘Let’s say there’s 10, and then the fans will be so happy when there’s even more’,” Hurwitz accurately hypothesized.
Now that you know about the reinvigorating new format, how should you proceed to watch the episodes when all 14 of them come out at once? “There is an order that we have put them together to create the maximum number of surprises,” said Hurwitz. “If you watch it in the order that we prescribe, you’ll get to, say, Episode 4 and realize that’s why [a character] did that in Episode 1.” So for the first time around it’s recommended that you watch them in order. Once you’ve done that, however, the episodes are designed for you to jump around and discover hidden gags along the way. “It’s one giant Arrested Development,” explained Hurwitz. “When we were all talking about it, we wanted to find a way to jump from one story to another, in a sort of ‘choose your own adventure.'” Bateman added, “Exclusive to the format that Netflix provides for us…you can watch a portion of Michael’s episode and then click over to Lucille’s episode.” I think we’ll have a better idea of what they’re trying to get at once the episodes release, but for now it’s something to chew on.
Hurwitz shared on the side that star Michael Cera became a vital part of the writing team during the making of these episodes. “Michael is such a brilliant guy and such a great writer,” Hurwitz said. “I really did bring him in because he’s such an open guy and wants to learn this other craft…And then suddenly we were very dependent on Michael Cera being in the writers’ room. He completely understood this complex story, he added to it, he pitched new characters. It became clear that ‘Wow, this is like his first language.’”
As far as new material goes, not much was shown. Before the panel started a quick reel flashed an image of Gob on a cross, whatever that can mean. But before the panel came to a close, Hurwitz presented what he calls a “deleted scene” that likely won’t end up in the final cut. In it we find Lucille under house-arrest blowing smoke into the mouth of momma’s boy Buster, instructing him to repeatedly run outside to the patio to exhale her puffs. The audience filled with critics and press shook the room with laughter. The mere visual concocted in my imagination has me laughing uncontrollably.