"Now, the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together. It's 'Arrested Development.'" - Ron Howard as the Narrator
Arrested Development: Season One DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Well, it's official. In September, the low-rated first season of Arrested Development won five Emmy Awards, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series, making it the best sitcom you're probably not watching. I didn't watch it either. Instead, I chose to watch two shows that the Emmy Awards curiously ignored - Skin, the Romeo & Juliet update of which Fox ran an episode and a half before replacing it with a test pattern, and Coupling, NBC's hara-kiri inducing Americanization of a terrific British show. Don't feel bad if you also missed out on watching this critically acclaimed non-hit. After all, who would have thought that Jason Bateman - an actor who seems like a nice guy yet always ends up in stuff like a terrible sitcom version of the terrible movie Kiss Me Guido - would actually appear in a must-see series? With the release of Arrested Development: Season One on DVD, now you can make up for past mistakes and get up to speed on this incredibly funny sitcom before its second season begins.
The series centers on the Bluths, a family of SoCal eccentrics who have amassed a fortune selling frozen bananas on Balboa Island and developing real estate. In the first episode, family patriarch George Sr. (The Larry Sanders Show's Jeffrey Tambor) is about to celebrate his retirement at a party thrown by his wife, Lucille (Jessica Walter). His college educated son Michael (Bateman) seems like the logical choice to become his successor. After all, Michael has devoted his life to Bluth Development Company. Plus, the rest of his family is - to put it mildly - nuttier than the frozen bananas they sell to tourists. Michael's younger brother, Buster (Tony Hale), is an addle-brained goofball whose greatest skill is being able to blend into the background. Michael's twin sister, Lindsay (Ally McBeal's Portia de Rossi), is a self-styled social activist who switches causes (the anti circumcision charity H.O.O.P.S., Hands Off Our Penises, for example) as often as she changes her expensive outfits. George "Gob" (pronounced like the put-upon biblical character Job, not like the slang British term) Bluth Jr. (Will Arnett) is their older brother, a Segway Scooter-riding magician who is more skilled at killing his animal assistants than making them disappear.
The extended family isn't much better. Tobias Fünke, Lindsay's possibly gay husband, is a psychiatrist who lost his medical license when he attempted to resuscitate a "dying" man who was merely sleeping. Now Tobias has decided to become an actor, ignoring the fact that he has less acting ability than he does medical ability. Maeby (Alia Shawkat) is their low-achieving teenage daughter. Michael's fourteen year-old son George-Michael (Michael Cera) is seemingly normal, but harbors a deep attraction for his cousin.
The retirement party doesn't quite go as planned - federal agents raid the festivities and arrest George. It seems that while running his business with an iron fist, his other fist was busy stuffing company money into his own pockets. With his father now in jail, Michael finds himself trying to salvage the company and keep his spoiled family in line.
First of all, believe the hype. Arrested Development is even funnier than you've heard. Upon receiving this set, you are liable to watch quite a few episodes in one sitting. There is really only one problem: while the show is sublimely funny, its sophisticatedly wacky sense of humor is almost impossible to describe. This, of course, might be why no one is watching - it's hard to convert someone to your cause if you can't fully explain to them why they should join up.
One thing is for sure - Arrested Development is no ordinary sitcom. The series is filmed like a mockumentary or a reality show - fly-on-the-wall observations, jittery camera moves, and clever editing give it the feel of a scripted cousin to The Osbournes or Newlyweds. With its semi-continuing stories that are often over the top yet grounded in reality, it also functions as a sort of soap opera parody. Funny visual gags (a secondary character gets plastic surgery and comes back with extremely cockeyed fake boobs; the family drives around in a "stair car" - a truck that once served as the gangway to the company jet) bring to mind Police Squad! or a live action version of The Simpsons. Yes, its' hard to put on paper or tell your friends about over the water cooler, but the series is damn funny.
Besides the brilliant writing, directing, and editing, much of the credit has to go to the cast. Bateman has always been likeable in shows like Little House on the Prairie and Silver Spoons, even when his roles were less than stellar. Given good material, as he is here, he proves to be immensely charming. He often acts as the show's straight man, but proves that the straight man can milk as many laughs as the wackier characters. Jessica Walter is witheringly funny as the family's bitter, catty matriarch. She steals every scene she is in. Tony Hale's Buster is a sublimely weird creation. He plays the character's oddness to perfection. The entire cast is excellent, really, and they work well together.
As if the regular cast isn't good enough, the series boasts an equally impressive guest cast. Liza Minnelli delivers an incredibly amusing performance as Lucille, Buster's lady love who shares his mother's first name. She is so great in the role that one wishes she would turn up more often. Action star Carl Weathers gamely plays himself as a down-and-out loser who gives Tobias "acting lessons" in return for a hot meal. Richard Simmons also pops up as himself in a brief cameo. Other guests include Bob Odenkirk (David Cross' Mr. Show costar), Henry Winkler (Happy Days), Mark Blankfield (Fridays), Heather Graham (Boogie Nights), James Lipton (Inside the Actors Studio), Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live), and Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Executive producer Ron Howard (The Andy Griffith Show) serves as the show's narrator.
Be sure to watch the "Next time..." bits at the end of each episode. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the episode that follows. Instead, they feature funny gags that continue that episode's storylines.
The packaging for Arrested Development: Season One is elegantly designed. The twenty-two episodes that make up season one are divided onto three discs. The discs are housed in slim, clear keepcases. The front covers are predominantly white. An orange-hued strip toward the top of each cover features headshots of various cast members behind prison bars. The back covers feature episode titles, airdates, writing and directing credits, and brief synopses. Also included are a few stills from the series and a listing of the extras found on the discs. The interiors are simply white. The DVD faces include cast headshots (the same ones found on the front covers) on a white background. The three keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve. The orange and white theme continues here, with headshots of the cast and police lineup-style montages. The simplicity of the set's graphic design is highly appealing.
The DVD menus are also chic and stylish, mimicking the series' opening credits. Clips from the series play in windows on the main menu. From this menu, viewers can choose to play all episodes, access the extras and languages menus, or access the episode selection menu. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
