The short version of this story is as follows: Mitch Hurwitz is working on season five of Arrested Development, and hopes to have it out by November. So, if that’s all you’re looking for here, there you go. God bless.
The long version is, well, longer, and full of a lot more “I dunnos” and “Uh, hang ons.” See, Deadline just published a report that detailed his progress, with this being the most important status update:
Working with a team of writers, has the season outlined, but complex negotiations with the cast over scheduling are still ongoing, and it is unclear yet who will be available to come back as all have other commitments. Once he knows which actors are signed, Hurwitz will start writing the scripts. One other reason he is putting that off until the last second — because there has been so much art imitating life over the past months, that he has had to constantly rewrite storylines.
So, the season is outlined, pending cast availability, and the things he has been writing have needed frequent revisions because the real world keeps poking its dang nose in the Arrested Development universe. Examples, with spoilers a-comin’ include:
- In season four, Lindsay Bluth got drafted into high-level Republican politics after giving a speech about putting up a wall to keep Mexicans out of America. This plot is now, to put it mildly, somewhat timely, and something they might want to address if they can get it in front of an audience by the next election.
- Season four ended with Buster getting arrested for Lucille Austero’s murder, which would “set up season five, which will be a serialized murder mystery.” As Deadline points out, this was before the recent run of high-profile true crime series (The Jinx, Serial, Making a Murderer), so the timing on this has never been better, either.
- Hurwitz apparently scrapped a long-time plan to have Jeffrey Tambor’s character become a woman after Tambor did the same — to great critical acclaim — in Transparent.
I dunno, though. Seems like that last one could still work. Maybe even better. We’ll have to see. In under 11 months, if Mitch Hurwitz can pull it off.
(Via Deadline)
