“And now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything,
and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.
It’s Arrested Development.”
It’s amazing to me the amount of people who still haven’t
given this show a chance; even after it’s 2004 Emmy
win for Outstanding Comedy. Arrested Development is a brilliant blend of sight gags, smart writing, perfect
timing, absurdity and a wonderful cast. If ratings are any
indication, the only way you might be able to see these quickly
is with this DVD release (and hopefully a release for season
2).
 The
DVD set of Season 1 has all 22 episodes plus the original
pilot. The basic set-up for the series is this: George Bluth
(played by Larry Sanders vet Jeffrey
Tambor) is arrested for accounting fraud from the family company,
the Bluth Corporation. His middle son, Michael (played by
Jason Bateman) wants nothing more than to get himself and
his son George Michael (newcomer Michael Cera) away from his
crazy family. Unfortunately, due to his father’s incarceration
in the pilot episode, he changes his mind and decides to stay
and keep his family together.
That family includes: Michael’s
twin sister, Lindsay (Portia DeRossi), the air headed “social
activist”; an older brother GOB (pronounced Job, played
so over-the-top by Will Arnet), a magician and general shiftless
lay about; and a younger brother, Buster (Tony Hale), who
is extremely sheltered and impressively fragile for someone
over the age of about 6, let alone a full-grown adult, their
manipulative mother, Lucille (Jessica Walter) needy, pushy,
offensive and hurtful, Lindsay’s sexually ambiguous
husband Tobias Funke (the hilarious David Cross) and their
daughter Maeby (Alia Shawkat). Ron Howard, a producer of the
show, narrates each episode. Some people have said that it
takes a few episodes for them to warm to the narration. I
thought it was great from the first episode I saw.
There are some ever-so-close to perfect episodes in this
bunch: In God We Trust, guest starring Henry Winkler
in a role unlike anything else he’s done; Let Them
Eat Cake, and my personal favorite, Bringing up Buster,
which sees Michael spending time with younger brother Buster
(including a brilliant scene where Buster lets loose a torrent
of profanity that would put even the most vile mouthed sailor
to shame), Tobias directing Maeby and George Michael in their
high school play, and the first appearance of the “Cornballer”.
 Sprinkled
throughout season 1 are some great cameos - Julia Louis-Dreyfus,
Heather Graham and Richard Simmons to name a few. I can’t
remember the last time I saw anything that had Liza Minnelli
in it that made me laugh. Her character in the series, Lucille
Austero, is a damn hoot.
The highest compliment I can think to give a TV series is
that its episodes are infinitely re-watchable. Arrested
Development certainly is. Its blend of subtle
and not-so-subtle as well as the outrageous and the mundane
make it a joy to watch over and over again. You will have
to watch each episode more than once to get everything out
of it because the jokes are coming at you so fast.
The episodes all look and sound terrific. It’s
nice to be able to see them in widescreen since I don’t
believe they are broadcast as such, or since I don’t
have a widescreen TV, if they are I don’t get to see
them.
Extras
The extras on the discs are adequate, though I would have
liked them to be more in depth. There are three commentary
tracks: One on the pilot that has series creator Michael Hurwitz,
along with Jason Bateman and directors Joe and  Anthony Russo. It’s the better of the two. The second
and third tracks are on episodes Beef Consommé and Let Them Eat Cake respectively and include Hurwitz
and the entire cast. The unfortunate part here is that for
a 22-minute episode there are so many participants that it
gets too crowded. We hardly hear from some of them at all.
In addition, while each is fun to listen to, the commentaries
are of the “slapping each other on the back” variety,
and ultimately not really informative or terribly interesting.
There are also extended/deleted scenes, and as usual with
these they are a mixed bag- sometimes you can tell why a subplot
was axed or why the scene was trimmed down. They are a nice
addition to the discs however.
 The
best two extras in my opinion are the way too short Museum of
Television and Radio cast panel discussion on disc two and the
original songs on disc one. The former is just a snippet from
the discussion instead of the entire event. To me it’s
always interesting in that you can cover so much of the same
type of ground at these type of panels as you can during a commentary
(and the Museum always does an excellent job with their panels)
but you aren’t restricted to what’s going on in
front of the commentator. The latter feature helps demonstrate
the detail that Hurwitz and company are putting into the show
from the dialogue to the songs here. Plus, having the Big
Yellow Joint song on the DVD here just plain rocks.
Finally rounding out the extras are three featurettes: Breaking
Ground, and two on the TV Land Future Classic award that
was given to the show. These are decent enough though pretty
much standard by-the-numbers fare. I’m glad they are
on the discs, but with a show this good I wanted more.
Parting Thoughts
To
me, this is the funniest show to come along in years and everyone
I have introduced to it has become a fan. The shows are fresh
and funny and interesting after more than one viewing. The extras
on the release are nice, though they really only scratch the
surface in explaining and documenting the show. I’m not
complaining, though overall I would have liked more.
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