TV Show of The Month: Arrested Development

Arrested Development (the clip above is just a mild taste I found on YouTube.com) is without a doubt one of the funniest, subversively intelligent, well-written television shows ever made. In the pantheon of sitcom immortality, it ranks right up there with Fawlty Towers as one of those shows that will live on forever and always be funny, each and every time you watch it.

I seriously can't rave enough about this show. The cast is perfect- Jason Bateman and Michael Cera (in his break out role) bounce off each other nicely in an unusual father-son relationship. Portia de Rossi and David Cross portray a dysfunctional marriage in the most hysterical way possible- with Alia Shawkat as their perpetually delinquent daughter. Will Arnett is the bullying, magician eldest brother, Tony Cross the overly babied younger brother and Jessica Welter and Jeffery Tambor cap the cast as the Matriach and the Patriarch respectively of television's most dysfunctional family. Random guest stars throughout the show include Liza Minelli, Carl Weathers, Ben Stiller, Judge Reinhold, William Hung, Julia Lewis Dreyfus and tons more.

I think it was Tolstoy that said that 'happy families are all alike'- and this may not be the happiest of families, but at the heart of the show, behind all the dysfunction and the conflict lies the one foundation of the show: that despite everything, these crazy, dysfunctional people are family- and that's what makes it all work- because without that bond, these people would just be annoying.

The humor and the writing in the show is fantastic and it works on multiple levels. Slightly disturbing plot lines (Michael Cera's George Michael falling for his cousin Maebe (played by Alia Shawkat) and very disturbing yet hilarious story lines (Justine Bateman, sister of Jason Bateman guest starring as his love interest) are both creepy, wrong and hysterically funny. Every time you watch this show, you can see something new- some subtle joke or something in the background that you didn't notice earlier means that the humor permeates every aspect of the show (like it should in a sitcom) and it hiding in the most unusual places.


My Verdict: One of the funniest shows of the past twenty years. Perfect cast, perfect writing and perfectly tragic that it was cancelled after only three seasons. ****(out of 4 stars)