User reviews

As you can tell by reading through most of these reviews, Arrested Development is loved by just about everyone who's seen it. It ended only after three seasons which was way too soon for such a great show. Netflix renewed it 8yrs after it went off the air. Season 3 was in 2005 and it wasn't until 2013 until season 4 finally made its debut. But those first few seasons were so good that it didn't still have to put this among my favorite sitcoms of all-time! It's about the Bluth family and how one of the sons, Micheal Bluth (Jason Bateman), takes over the family business and affairs when his father George Bluth (Jeffrey Tambor) goes to prison. This family is so dysfunctional that they make Michaels life impossible. If you haven't seen this yet then do yourself a favor and watch it asap!

Arrested Development really is one of the funniest and most underrated tv shows ever created, especially the first three seasons! As most of the reviews have already said the quality dropped off for the last 2 seasons when it came back after taking a few years off. But those first few seasons were so good that it makes this show an all-time great sitcom!

Seasons 1-3: 10/10

Season 4 (Original edit): 6/10

Season 4 (Re-edit): 6/10

Season 5: 6/10

This show really dipped in quality once Netflix picked it up. The new seasons still have their moments, but it never lived up to the original episodes.

This show takes a few episodes before you *really* GET it. And once you get it, you'll realize why everybody thinks it's one of the best sitcoms ever.

Each character is really defined and original...with real, unique personalities. All of the actors have fantastic chemistry, making for really great interactions and relationships within the show.

The writing for this show is great, and the plots are so absurd that you can't help but find them funny.

A refreshing change in a world where people like reality shows...it's the only good sitcom left.

First three seasons were like best thing you could see in a sitcom ever. But from 4th season it's all going downhill. I couldn't even get through season 5. If it wasn't for last two seasons, this show would have been my favourite sitcom.

This is the funniest show currently on television. All you need to enjoy this show is an appreciation for high-quality acting and incredibly hilarious writing. Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth is perfect as the under-appreciated do-good guy who's just trying to keep his family together and himself sane. Other highlights of the show include Will Arnett as GOB (George Oscar Bluth II), Michael's lame-excuse-for-a-magician brother; Jeffrey Tambor as George Sr., Michael's incarcerated father (he was jailed for "shifty accounting practices"); and Michael Cera as George Michael Bluth, Michael Bluth's perpetually nervous 13-year-old son (who just happens to have a strange infatuation with his cousin, Maebe, played by "State of Grace"'s Alia Shawkat). All in all this show is sure to be a hit, at least with those people whose level of understanding of comedy is above slapstick and bathroom jokes. TREMENDOUSLY hilarious writing and outstanding performances by the whole cast will have you laughing the whole time. Ten out of ten!

Season 4-5 were not necessary and kinda ruined it. The show was ahead of it's time it its is perfect for streaming. Seasons 1 to 3 is the funniest show of all time.

You've doubtless heard fans rave and rave about this show, and may have even checked it out. The camp is sharply divided, people either absolutely love it, or tend to just "not get it." In that sense it may not be for everyone (great television, and great art in general, rarely is), and to each his own. But after watching each season multiple times, I can easily say that it is the funniest show that I have ever seen by an ENORMOUS margin. Even after many repeat viewings, I still end up in tears all the time.

DVD treats this series well simply because it suits itself to rapid digestion (and after getting hooked, you won't be able to get up). The writers include many, many running gags that persist through entire seasons, or even the entire series ("I've made a huge mistake." "Her?"). The entire cast is extremely WELL cast and everyone's comedic timing is spot on. The real stars are David Cross as Tobias, and Will Arnett as GOB. Their physical comedy is drop dead hilarious as well. But Jessica Walters and Jeffrey Tambor are phenomenal, the former most especially in the third season.

As others have stated there is no laugh track and this is part of what throws some of the "we don't get it" camp off. The humor is very fast paced as well, and many of the biggest laughs are very subtle physical comedy, or a line of dialog that is dropped in the midst of a conversation. Some of the music that was written for the show is absolutely hilarious as well, especially the song that plays often when George Micheal is put in an awkward (sexual) situation ("whatcha trying to say to me??").

Start with season 1, give it 4 episodes (go through at least the episode "key decisions" which I believe is ep 4). If you're not hooked, or at least intrigued by then, its likely you wont be at all. But if you're like me, and MANY others, you'll find that you've just stumbled upon one of the greatest shows ever made. VERY highly recommended. 10/10

The main score is excluding the last 2 seasons. Judging by the first 3 seasons, this is one of the best sitcoms ever made but various factors led to it not doing so well while it ran and getting cut. It became a lot more popular after it had ended and word of mouth got around about how great it was. Due to popular demand and the show being cut so soon, there were rumors about it being revived for years but unfortunately that didn't happen until Netflix decided to pick it up about 7 years after the last season.

I don't know what happened with season 4, but the end result was a season with some big issues and lacking the clever comedy of the first 3 seasons. Season 5 was released nearly 5 years later that unfortunately was also very disappointing. I suspect a key person or people were not involved in season 4 and 5 (like Larry David was not involved in the last few seasons of Seinfeld, though the drop in quality wasn't as severe) or Netflix people butted in too much thinking they knew better.

Again, the first 3 seasons are excellent and up there with other top sitcoms. Several of those sitcoms also had disappointing seasons towards the end, just most had made it at least 5 seasons before the quality started to decline. Arrested Development most likely would have been similar had Fox not canceled it after season 3.

I'm excluding those seasons because I barley watched season 4 as it was unbearable, and I didn't even attempt to watch season 5. To me, Arrested Development is 3 incredible seasons of inventive, clever, witty television. This show was so funny. I loved the use of narration, visual gags, running gags, and how they contributed to the storytelling. It was always very well written, and the cast was amazing. They all bought something very distinct to their characters. I particularly liked Gob and Tobias the most, and Will Arnett and David Cross were both brilliant respectively. Loved this show, and it's a shame what it's slowly turned into.

Season 1-3 is good and funny but Season 4 & 5 is atrocious.

I have seen a lot of great shows and a few bad ones. Arrested Development is brilliant, at least in my view. The show is well made visually, with very nice photography and sets that don't look cheap in any way. The music is memorable, particularly the theme tune, the story lines are well-structured with any big themes executed cleverly and the writing and jokes are some of the funniest and smartest I've seen. The characters are admittedly strange, but they are also unique and have their likability too, while the acting from the whole cast is consistently top-notch and the show even uses their guest stars in a creative way. All in all, funny, smart and engaging, quite simply a brilliant show. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Watching the first five episodes of Arrested Development Season 5 is like individually cutting off all five of my left fingers, with time in-between to contemplate just why I was exactly doing this, only to be told that just one more finger will make me finally see the true meaning of this activity.

I'm starting to feel like some fans are in serious denial. If seeing Jason Bateman on the screen is enough to make you forget about how terrible what you're watching is, then you're going to love this season. If not, I'd just stay away.

Great show till Netflix started making the show. Really enjoyed the first couple seasons and then Netflix took over and trashed it.

Strange, Fox's promos almost made me miss out on this whole thing.

It's a sit-com made with very high standards, it's a career revival for Ron Howard, Henry Winkler and Liza Minelli, and it's a show that puts Fox's profile into HBO territory. "It's Arrested Development"

"In fact...", a Ron Howard quote that has become a cliché around our house, in fact, it's all those things and more. The writing is as good as everyone says it is, the cast is on par with that of Seinfeld or Roseanne. (Say what you will about her, that was a dream cast) Whenever new characters appear, they are inevitably played by people familiar to fans of edgy, intelligent humor. People like Jeffrey Tambor and Jason Bateman are dependably good, Michael Cera is a standout, and David Cross is finally being seen for the talent that he is.

The strongest thing I can say about this is that I find myself repeating various running gags, things that, like "In fact...", have become clichés. "I've made a huge mistake." "I'm having the time of my LIFE in here!" "surprisingly cat-like" "Take a powder, willya fellas?"

This last one, uttered by Liza Minelli as Lucille Austero, sticks with me especially, and I hope that Liza stays with the show longer. As good as the principles are, she manages to outclass even them. The same with Henry Winkler, whose Barry Zuckercorn is the sort of lawyer television's been dying for. Among those main players, Lindsay and Tobias are pretty strange characters to begin with, but when you consider that they are an old married couple, that crosses the line into the bizarre. This show is full of people and situations you just won't see anywhere else, at least until other derivative shows start appearing.

Watch carefully, as there are many bit and pieces lingering in the background that you might miss. Recently, George Michael was dumped by his girlfriend. As he trudged home in a state of misery, you could hear sad Charlie Brown music. In the background, you could see a real - but bright red - dog house, with a real dog lying on top of it. It's things like these that tell me that the creators are just pleased to be doing this show for it's own sake, and that kind of love of the work shows through in the end.

Who knows if this show will last? There's an audience out there for this sort of thing, but they've generally settled into the Sunday night HBO schedule. Hopefully the Emmys, the word of mouth, and the critical raves will draw attention to this show. If not, we'll just have our A.D. dvds to keep us warm, and thank God for 'em!

Season 1: 8/10 Season 2: 10/10 Season 3: 9/10

I don't recognize the rest.

There was a time during what is commonly known as The Golden Age of Television when the medium was used to communicate. It was used to entertain, inspire, and evoke a connection with the people. There was time in television when the programs would challenge not only the standard, but also the viewer. It started with things like Sanford & Son and All In the Family. Then the Richard Pryor Show shook people to the bone. From these gems came further explorations of the comic genre. We were treated to things like The Simpsons, Married With Children, and Seinfeld. Shows that broke the mold of the typical sitcom formula. They found their actors and made them stars. They didn't take washed up has-been film actors and try to turn them into the affable characters that they obviously were not. They simply took fresh talent and gave them the environment to get better and eventually captivate.

Then something terrible happened in 1993. A show, on what was supposed to be a music video network, got the idea to film real people living together in a house. From the first episode of The Real World, the Golden Age of Television was over. From this little show spawned a countless number of reality TV Shows that have paved the way for mind numbing experiences of watching people acting "real" while they are being filmed. It showed us all that not only is this medium of television completely unoriginal, but that it also provided people with insight into just how far somebody will go to get themselves on the airwaves. In 1994 something else happened. A little show called "Friends" hit the desk of the execs at NBC. From that we now have an endless string of formulaic, hokey, poorly written buddy sitcoms, all focusing on the same issues that plague the "poor" yuppie world that these people all seem to inhabit. Gone was the time when you didn't really need the laugh track; gone was the time of multi-plot line programming.

And then, something truly amazing and inspiring happened. In a collaborative effort from the Hurwitz Company and Imagine Entertainment came a brilliant piece of intelligent programming; a show that had no precedent. A truly talented ensemble cast, a brilliant writing team, and an amazing staff of directors and photographers that changed the art form like never before. Gone were the days of traditional, canned laughter sitcoms. It seems that we had all been saved from another infinite line of weak programs, and by whom? The FOX Network. Who would have thunk it? But then again, it made perfect sense. FOX brought us The Simpsons, Married With Children, and Family Guy. They had been known to challenge the bar that was set by regular programming. But instead of living on with those classics, it was forced to willow away in the doldrums of cancellation alongside other brilliant yet failed shows, like Action, Titus, and Greg the Bunny. Some people like to watch clichéd, overplayed, over done formulas every week. Some people like the safe humor, the one-two camera angles, the boring sets, and the canned laughter. Some people just don't want to think. The rest of us…the rest of us watch Arrested Development.

I've seen a lot of basic comedy-shows and AV came as my epiphany.

Two things are making this show so perfect: 1) The character design... It's as simple as amazing. None of them seems to change at all but that's fine. Although they are all facing kinda the same situations again and again, it never gets boring. Michael, his son, Tobias and George Bluth are my favorites.

2) The situations that are being created... Whether it's throughout the whole show or just a single episode of it - person A, B, and C are all dealing with their own hilarious stuff and somehow they end up in a single storyline. At that point, I don't even wanna know how it happened, yet my amusement level is at the top.

Not gonna watch S4 and 5 though. I had a blast with this so far and im satisfied with how it ended.

10 stars belong to the Fox network run of the series. I still remember watching the debut season on Sunday evenings. The netflix reboot was just.........wrong and I knocked off 2 stars because it feels little more than a knock off than an actual continuation of the show. The reboot feels like there's 2/3rds less comedy in each episode compared to the shows in the first 3 seasons. Also, it does a really lousy job trying to pick things up years down the line. More clumsy than offbeat funny. They really could have done better. Maybe it tries too hard but its years too late, maybe it forgot the show had likable characters, maybe it was too busy trying to be a political allegory instead of being funny like, a sitcom. I guess it's true what they say about any art. You can't go back and pretend it's the same. Then again, there's a few netflix reboots that failed miserably after moving to that streaming service (Designated Survivor anyone??].

So the show has the appearance of a reality tv show/mockumentary about a rich family who ends up broke and mired in legal troubles. In the orginal run, it focused on the middle son of the family trying to keep the family and business going despite his desperation to abandon them. The show throws alot of comedic curves and stays fresh for awhile as things get more outlandish. I rank the oringal 53 episode run up there with Fawlty Towers considering the amount of jokes and gags stuffed into a single episode. It is incredible how much they got into one 23 minute episode. Its like a joke every 7 seconds and yet they still develop a story in that. Those first 3 seasons are the fastest feeling and most enjoyable binge watching experience of all time.

Arrested Development had a very strong cult following (sadly lousy ratings) hence its demand for a reboot but honestly the first 3 seasons are a perfect bookend. It ends where it begins under similar circumstances but with opposite resolutions. One can only do so much for people who only think of themselves but are still somehow incapable of helping themselves. That was the lesson learned and leaving it there was right.

If you only know the series from its initial 3 season 53 episode run but never got around to the 4th and 5th season netflix run, you aren't missing anything. They're forgettable. The reboot is like those Gilligan's Island movies after that show ended or the Revenge of the Nerds movies that never made it to theaters. The fast paced humor is gone, the story is a mess, the premise restated during the opening credits is abandoned and instead of the narration helping fuel comedy, it turns into boring exposition most of the time. Like the plot and existence of the characters alone is meant to be the joke and the show was always about black comedy which it never was (more of a screwball comedy than anything else). I question if anyone involved in the reboot really wanted to do it for more than just money.

If you were allowed to pick only one show for your post-pandemic life, this would be the one.

*Note: My review refers ONLY to the original series (seasons 1-3).

What can I say ? This is a flawless and brilliant character-based gem of a comedy. The show's premise (how rich people would cope if they lost all their money) is ground for massive potential, and the show's creators do not disappoint. This show is also in a sense prophetic as it cleverly anticipated the boom of reality-TV, being shot in brilliantly amateurish fashion.

The story revolves around the super-wealthy Bluth family, rendered penniless after the patriarch is jailed for embezzlement. The one 'normal' son, Michael, tries to salvage his eccentric family as they get into blunder after blunder. This includes his elder brother Gob (a 'magician'), younger brother Buster (an 'academic'), twin sister Lindsay (an 'activist'), brother in law Tobias (an 'actor'), niece Maeby (a slacker), mother Lucille (sharp-tongued socialite) and son George Michael (an innocent).

The show is brilliant on so many levels, and the writing is incredibly smart. The show is highly quotable, and throughout its original 3 series never lost momentum. The beauty of this show is definitely the delusional characters. They all clearly suffer from a delusion of still being rich, and each character has a particular quirk. Even the supporting characters are brilliant (nods to Liza Minelli as Lucille Ostero, Henry Winkler as Barry Zuckercorn, Julia- Louis Dreyfuss as Maggie Lieser, and Ben Stiller as Tony Wonder).

Brilliant brilliant show, but I advise against watching Netflix's 2013 4th season. The 2003-6 run was epic.

It was really really great show, but then came the Netflix and ruined it.

This is, without a doubt, the greatest TV comedy in capturing the 2000s. It mocks the paranoia surrounding the Iraq War, the 24-hour news cycle, the housing boom and bust, and the cult of reality television without missing a beat.

It does all of that without ever seeming preachy or losing its charming sense of humor. There is no scene in the series that lacks the self- referential humor that characterizes the show, and almost every episode builds on the quirks of either one of the main characters or one of the many background characters of Orange County. Jason Bateman (Michael) does a solid job, but the real stars are the other members of the family. Michael Cera (George Michael), David Cross (Tobias Fünke), and Jessica Walter (Lucille) are particularly memorable.

I will never look at a seal, model homes, or Southern California itself without thinking about the wonderfully dysfunctional Bluths and the time that I spent watching them on "Arrested Development."

(I have seen this show several times over the years, but I have mostly recently watched in its entirety in June 2017)

10 for the first three seasons but 4 for the last two! Id recommend watching the first three and nothing more. But for the first three MY GOD peak of sitcom comedy one of the smartest and funniest shows out there.

What is the deal with season 5? Are George Michael and Maeby supposed to still be teenagers? Why do they call the model home George Michael's childhood home? I knew it was over when GM punched his dad. Another great show has been ruined.