One Bluth at a Time

Every fan obsessed, mildly or dangerously, has heard about the resurrection of the ground-breaking TV series Arrested Development. If you haven’t, the briefest way to tell the story is that Netflix is smarter than any other TV network, distribution company, video rental outlet, or online video streaming site on the planet. They’re going to be running a new season of the show steaming, and we’ve just learned some new details about how the show’s creators have teamed up with Netflix to bring this great show to the craved and crazed fan base in a very unique and fun way.

The creator of Arrested Development, Mitchell Hurwitz, has found a way to work around the inevitable scheduling conflicts he ran into when trying to bring back all of the actors for the show, many of which enjoyed outstanding film and TV careers after the show was taken off the air. Some were even able to launch their career completely, like Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat, bringing them success on other great shows and some great films. For others, like Jason Bateman, it resurrected careers blasting them into near A list status. Bateman and Cera have provided Netflix with many great film gems over the past few years to distribute through their company, so it’s only fitting that they help continue the show’s prominence.

Hurwitz is going to focus the first few episodes on following individual characters, and to focus on where they have gone and what they have done since we last saw them. As sort of an “anthology”, the show will give us a glimpse at the characters we love through a more focused method. This was done so they didn’t have to bring all the actors in all at once at the beginning, because of all the insane scheduling conflicts. To begin with, Will Arnett and David Cross are on other shows right now, and Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, and Jeffrey Tambor are busy actors all over town.

The most interesting thing about the way Netflix will present the show is that all episodes will be available all at once. So if you wanted, the viewer could watch the episodes all at once, getting a full story in a bunch. It’s going to be incredibly interesting to see how this method works out, and could very well bring us into a new stage of TV show distribution.

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