Prepare the Bluth Company stair car and watch out for Marvel Cinematic Universe hop-ons, Arrested Development is “definitely” getting a fifth season.
*blasts “You Here With Me” and twirls in slow motion*
If it seems like we’ve made a fuss about this before, that’s because we have. In January, creator Mitch Hurwitz shared that he hoped to get a new season of the critically acclaimed ensemble comedy ready to go before election season. Drunk on the prospect of more Bluths (with potential murder mystery Bluths, no less!) we got worked up into a lovely tizzy, before wondering what was gumming up the works in getting the new episodes out into the universe. Did you see how we went from really excited to sorta greedy in just four months? That’s the magic of drooled-over TV that’s been off the air for like three years.
In an interview with Esquire to promote his new Netflix series Lady Dynamite starring Maria Bamford, Hurwitz got the inevitable “when’s Arrested Development coming back?” question and gave a response that confirms season five is coming, but maybe not at the speed we might like. Also, season four has been given a bit of a revamp for TV purposes.
It’ll happen. It’ll definitely happen. Not before the election, but it’s definitely going to happen. I say that because the actors want to do it, the studio wants to do it, Netflix wants to do it, I want to do it. It’s just making it happen. There’s no one resisting. There’s a recut, too, of the fourth season, just to make it airable on TV. They’re like the old Arrested Developments. We redid all the narration and reshot a few little things. Now we have 22 episodes, and they’re delightful to watch and they’re much less work than the Netflix series. My hope is we’ll find a place to air those.
Arrested Development you have to patiently wait for is better than no Arrested Development. As you may have guessed, there was no discussion of a Running Wilde revival, but Hurwitz did note that the show has had to navigate around real world developments like Donald Trump’s rise as a political figure and the boom of true crime television. As Hurwitz told Esquire: “We were putting up a wall before Trump was.”
I know. It’s crazy. We were also building to a murder mystery and we were laying all these clues, and it was before there was this sudden interest in true crime with Fred Durst, Making a Murderer, and OJ. And there were so many OJ references in the fourth season. We even had Gob find a perfectly good OJ Simpson in the dumpster behind the wax museum. He was, like, driving around with this OJ Simpson and that was going to fit into the murder plot. But we’ll find new things. I’m trying, man.
The eventual release date for this fifth season remains a mystery, but for now why not revisit some of the show’s best guest stars (Carl Weathers appearance guaranteed!) and gloriously spectacular career failures.
(via Esquire)
