Arrested Development

yardgames

Retired Administrator
The Ultimate Irony: The critics love it and the audience hates it. Great show, although I seldom watch it anymore, I enjoyed when it was on before and after MITM.
 

MITM18

New member
The audiences dont hate it, its just they dont really know about it. Its in a bad timeslot to coincide with Monday Night Football.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
It hasn't always coincided with MNF. I think the problem isn't that the audience doesn't know about it--rather they don't understand it! I missed one ep last year, for example, and suddenly Buster had a hook for a hand! Explain how that works out.

It's sort of an unwritten rule that MITM fans aren't AD fans and vice versa.
 

Dewey

Minimalistic
In UK it airs on BBC Four. I have only seen one episode - didn't really understand what was happening, but in this particular episode there was a recurring innuendo about the song "Afternoon Delight" which related to the plot. This was rather funny as it gave alternative perspective about what this means. However despite this, I doubt I would watch again unless it was the first episode...it's kind of been on too long now to play "catch up" and relate to the characters and scenario properly.
 

Emrysgirl

New member
I haven't seen enough of the series to make a decision. I either love it or am bored by it.

It has a very random style that's very easy to screw up. Randomness is awesome! But, when something is random, it risks being so random that it's absurd, uninteresting and confusing. I think that's what happened with the Buseys in MitM.
 

Ryebeach

Moderator
I liked Arrested Development and I dare say it has the best cast on TV at this time. They all play each other seamlessly and are always laugh out loud funny although I stopped watching after its timeslot changed from airing after MITM. I thought they were great companion shows. I watch too many shows as it is and this one, sadly, just didn't make the cut for my TV schedule.
 

Hendrix

New member
Re: Frankie Muniz Going To Appear On Arrested Development

AD is hilarious. They had Andy Richter on last year as himself so I'm sure they'll be at the movie studio again. I don't think you have to watch it all from the first episode. The running jokes can still be laughed upon and the Narrator pretty much fills you up on anything plot-related. As for the audience, Two characters are teenagers and one character is like 70. It reaches a very broad audience.

P.S. Andy Richter's appearance was hysterical. He dropped a sandwich, got mad, and kicked it. LMAO.
 

APK

New member
Re: Frankie Muniz Going To Appear On Arrested Development

I think Arrested Development is a great show. (It's on tonight, in fact, on BBC2.) As MITM18 said, it's presented as a documentary (with Ron Howard as narrator, who played little Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days"), although the show is about a fictional family, called the Buths.

There's George Bluth Sr, who used to be head of the Bluth Company, and his wife Lucille, their four adult children, GOB (which stands for George Oscar Bluth and is pronounced Jobe - there have been a few times on the show when people, such as a news reporter, have accidentally called him "Gob"), twins Michael and Lindsay, and the youngest, Buster, who is too attached to his mother. Lindsay is married to Tobias Funke, who used to be a psychiatrist, but lost his medical license after giving CPR to a man who it turned out wasn't having a heart attack. They have a daughter, called Maeby, and Michael also has a son named George-Michael, who is one of my favourite characters, along with Gob and Tobias. George-Michael is a really good, hard-working kid, very nervous and polite, and has a crush on his cousin Maeby (although he's sort of managed to forget this crush and has currently got a girlfriend, called Ann Veal, who his father hardly knows, but doesn't like her, all the same.) Currently, in season two, which the BBC is showing, their lawyer is Barry Zuckerkorn (played by Henry Winkler, who played Fonzie on "Happy Days"), the worst lawyer you could imagine.

Anyway, in the first episode, George Sr was arrested for using the company's money for his own purposes and Michael is consistently trying to straighten out the family and save the company. George Sr has managed to escape from prison (he escaped in the last episode of the first season by faking a heart attack, and there's a funny moment where the entire family is gathered at the hospital. The doctor comes out and says, "We lost him." What he means is that George Sr has escaped, but the family thinks that he means he has died. Horrified and upset, they enter the room to see him, see the empty bed and the open window...and as the narrator says, "It was then that they realised that George Sr wasn't dead - but was fleeing the country that he loved so very much."

Presently, George Sr is back in the country and is hiding in the attic of Michael's home, which he shares with George-Michael, Lindsay, Tobias and Maeby.

Apologies for the rather long-winded reply. I tend to ramble about things I'm interested in.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Re: Frankie Muniz Going To Appear On Arrested Development

Thanks, MITM18, I forgot about that thread :D you must be an AD fanatic! I'll send some of the more off-topic posts in this thread over there.
 

MITM18

New member
What do you think of this dialogue, its going to be in a future episode?


George Sr. is in the 'Scared Straight' tent at the Church fair with a police officer standing closeby. What George Sr. doesn't realize is that he is speaking to a group of homosexual boys whose parents wanted them to be 'scared straight.'

George Sr.: How would you like to have some guy reach around you in the middle of the night and start messing around in your pants?
Teen Boy #1: Is he ugly?
George Sr: Who knows? It's pitch black, so you never see him. And the guards look the other way. No one gets blamed, no one gets caught, and it happens every night of the week.
Teen Boy #2: Where is this magical place?
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
You probably need to see the context to get the full effect, but knowing what I do about George Sr. it sounds very funny. I suppose you get spoilers for AD as well, MITM18?
 

MITM18

New member
Yep, of course, but really just keep it to myself since I dont have as much time to release it.

If I released everything I had, I wouldnt have any time in the world :D
 

Wemboy

New member
AD is definitely one of those shows that takes a while to get into. I remember watching it when it first aired in the UK and i hated it, even though (as people have already said) the critics raved about it. For me it was just too "random" as Aditi said, it seemed to have no real structure, and I thought the writing was quite self indulgent. But recently i've been watching season two on Sundays on BBC2 and it's been really good, probably just because i'm used to the characters and the humour.

I'd definitely recommend it, but only to someone who was prepared to give it some time, and not expect to get all the jokes straight away. I think that might be why it's had fairly low ratings; when people watch a new show they usually give it five or ten minutes and if it doesn't immediately grab their attention they switch off. I know because i do the same, unless it's something i'm really intrigued by, in which case i'll watch a whole episode, but if i'm not hooked by then i never will be. AD is never going to triumph over this kind of impatience, unfortunately.
 

Malcoholic

New member
I think Wemboy's post summarizes the main reasons why AD is somewhat hard to get into. I will just add that the mood of the show is too cynical for a lot of viewers. There is practically no love in the Bluth family; with the exception of affection between Michael and his teenage son, the family members are completely self-absorbed. This is especially unattractive with respect to the mother Lucille, who has no love for her children or anyone else; she also carries on an affair with George's worthless identical twin brother Oscar, for no other reason than that Oscar has long hair and George is bald. A loveless mother like this is for some people hard to take, even though she's brilliantly funny.
 

Gouki

New member
I love the show. It's funny, and well acted criminally underwatched. Sort of like a grown-up Malcolm in the Middle. By gorwn up, I mean it has the same feel and atmosphere as Malclm in the Middle only the adults are the focus.
 
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