If there is one show that is polarizing to viewers, it is Arrested Development. The show, created by Mitchell Hurwitz, focused on Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) and his amoral and rich family, with all the trouble that they would get into while attempting to stay out of trouble in spite of their past mistakes. It was a comedy show that was praised by critics, but never really found a successful mainstream audience. The show lasted three seasons on FOX, and the Netflix picked up a fourth season years after its initial cancellation. This fourth season was not very well-received, but a new edit could help with that, as well as a long-awaited release date for Season 5.
According to The Verge, Season 4 of Arrested Development is about to get a recut. When 15 episodes of a fourth season appeared, it was a strange experiment, and that is saying something for this particular program. Originally, the show focused on the family's dynamic as they would work together with a plotline that lasted the length of an episode, and still had a story that would last a season and the length of the show.
Sadly, FOX only ordered a half-season for Season 3, which was a bad sign. The show was clearly on the fence, and it eventually fell off. It took several years for it to be resurrected on Netflix, who is starting to rescue shows with a huge fanbase, such as Longmire.
One of the challenges for Arrested Development is that most of the cast has gone on and busy with other projects, and it kind of came off that way when it hit Netflix. The problem with Season 4 was it was made with a plan so that the episodes could be watched in any order. Each episode was focused on one particular character, and there was a storyline in Season 4 that connected them all, and they eventually all met up.
Hurwitz has recut the entire season so that it plays out like a traditional television season. This will turn the fifteen 30-minute episodes into twenty-two 20-minute episodes. Apparently, Hurwitz had quite a job ahead of him as he even called in the narrator Ron Howard to do a different set of voice-overs.
So what about Season 5 of the show? It has been three years since Season 4, so you can tell that the show is stuck in development hell. It is rumored that it will begin filming in 2017, which would probably put it for airing on Netflix in...2018? There is a rumor that there could be a movie before Season 5, and it is quite possible that the movie could be it.
The issue with Arrested Development is that the series never really had any sense of finality or closure. Season 3 was rushed with an ending, and Season 4 was left very open-ended.
