Arrested Development

*Arrested Development*
Arrested Development
	File:Adlogo.jpg Arrested Development Logo
Created by	Mitchell Hurwitz
Starring	Jason Bateman; Will Arnett; Michael Cera; David Cross; Tony Hale; Portia de Rossi; Alia Shawkat; Jeffrey Tambor; Jessica Walter
Country of origin	USA
No. of episodes	40 (2 seasons)
Production
Running time	21 Minutes
Original release
Network	FOX
Release	November 2, 2003 –; present

Arrested Development is a character-driven comedy television series about a wealthy but dysfunctional family, a contemporary, faster-paced variant of the series Soap. The show is presented like a documentary, complete with narration, archival photos, and historical footage. Set in Balboa Island, California, it is filmed on location in the city and the surrounding area.

The show was created by Mitchell Hurwitz (The Ellen Show, The John Larroquette Show, The Golden Girls). TV veteran Ron Howard is an executive producer and the uncredited narrator. It airs on Fox Television in the US, on the Global Television Network in Canada, The Comedy Channel in Australia, on BBC 2 or 4 in the UK and on TV3 in Ireland. It debuted on November 2, 2003.

Brief outline

Template:Spoiler The premise of Arrested Development revolves around the Bluth family. The patriarch of the clan, George Bluth Sr. is founder and former C.E.O. of the Bluth Company, which builds homes, among other things. George Sr. was arrested by the Securities and Exchange Commission for defrauding customers and spending too much of the company's money on "personal expenses". He was convicted and sent to Orange County Prison that, ironically, his company had built in 1983.

Meanwhile, his wife, Lucille became C.E.O. and immediately named her youngest son Buster as the new president, but he was not prepared for the rigors of the job. Michael, the middle son and twin to the Bluths' only girl, Lindsay, then was awarded control. He maintained control until he himself became the target of the ongoing investigation into the company's financial records and various dealings. At that point, eldest son George Oscar (G.O.B.) was named president.

The show focuses on the tension that developed between the members of the Bluth family due primarily to their diminished spending power. Sibling rivalries, unresolved oedipal conflicts, sexual incompatibilities, personal identity crises, adolescent trauma, aging, pride, miscommunication, lying, guilt, subterfuge, determination, manipulation, mutilation, social status anxiety, and countless other themes weave serpentine throughout Arrested Development.

Much like other dysfunctional family comedies such as Malcolm in the Middle, The Simpsons, Roseanne, and Married... with Children, the family unit is depicted as necessary for the survival of the individual. Much of the comedy comes from the quirks of the characters and the patterns that developed within the family structure.

Characters

Character	Description	Played by
George Bluth Sr.	Patriarch of Bluth family; escaped prisoner; married to Lucille	Jeffrey Tambor
Oscar Bluth	Identical twin brother to George; ex-hippie and recreational marijuana user; has a gorgeous head of hair; had an affair with Lucille years ago that may have produced Buster	Jeffrey Tambor
Lucille Bluth	Neglectful lush; mother to Bluth brood; CEO of Bluth Company, alcoholic	Jessica Walter
George Oscar "G.O.B" Bluth II	Struggling, incompetent magician; creator of "Bananagrabber"; appears in "Girls with Low Self-Esteem" videos, created a CD with puppet named Franklin	Will Arnett
Michael Bluth	Middle Bluth son; twin of Lindsay; father of George Michael; saviour of the Bluth Empire; hopes to bring company back from the dead	Jason Bateman
George Michael Bluth	Son of Michael; loves his bike; loved his teacher and lusts after his cousin, Maeby; terrified of prisons and midgets; always on time; has new girlfriend, Ann (aka Egg, Hog, Plant), a plain-Jane type with extremely religious parents	Michael Cera
Buster Bluth	Oedipally disturbed biological baby boy; loves juice; career student; scared of sheep, sex, girls, and so on; signed on to the United States Army by his mother on a dare from a fake Michael Moore ; had his hand bitten off by an escaped, trained seal and replaced by a hook	Tony Hale
Lindsay Bluth Fünke	Twin of Michael; unhappily married to Tobias; mother of Maeby; pseudo-liberal; loves to cage dance, protest various causes, shop, and flirt	Portia de Rossi
Tobias Fünke	Sort-of husband to Lindsay; former psychiatrist; perpetual loser; "never-nude"; has turned to acting; student of Carl Weathers; may be gay; aspiring member of the Blue Man Group; briefly became Mrs. Featherbottom, an amalgam of Mary Poppins and Mrs. Doubtfire, to spend more time with his daughter	David Cross
Maeby Fünke	Daughter of Tobias and Lindsay; possible product of artificial insemination; created fake charity for rare disease B.S.; created a false persona named Surely who was dying of disease; currently a major movie executive at the age of 15, also admits she likes George Michael	Alia Shawkat

Episode Guide

Season 1 (2003-2004)

22 episodes.

Designation	Title	Airdate
ARR-101	Pilot	November 2, 2003
ARR-102	Top Banana	November 9, 2003
ARR-103	Bringing Up Buster	November 16, 2003
ARR-105	Key Decisions	November 23, 2003
ARR-106	Charity Drive	November 30, 2003
ARR-104	Visiting Ours	December 7, 2003
ARR-107	In God We Trust	December 14, 2003
ARR-108	My Mother, My Car	December 21, 2003
ARR-109	Storming The Castle	January 4, 2004
ARR-110	Pier Pressure	January 11, 2004
ARR-111	Public Relations	January 25, 2004
ARR-112	Martha Complex	February 8, 2004
ARR-113	Beef Consomme	February 15, 2004
ARR-114	Shock And Aww	March 7, 2004
ARR-115	Staff Infection	March 14, 2004
ARR-117	Altar Egos	March 17, 2004
ARR-118	Justice Is Blind	March 21, 2004
ARR-116	Missing Kitty	March 28, 2004
ARR-119	Best Man for the Gob	April 4, 2004
ARR-120	Whistler's Mother	April 11, 2004
ARR-121	Not Without My Daughter	April 25, 2004
ARR-122	Let 'Em Eat Cake	June 6, 2004

Season 2 (2004-2005)

18 episodes. (The season was originally supposed to run 22 episodes, but the order for the last four were cut by the network, reportedly due to low ratings. The network claimed it was actually part of a strange gambit to "protect" the show from cancellation since the last four episodes would air during sweeps. This was fodder for material within the show; the writers made light of it by having an order for a tract of houses the Bluth company was supposed to build cut from 22 houses to 18.)

Designation	Title	Airdate
ARR-201	The One Where Michael Leaves	November 7, 2004
ARR-202	The One Where They Build a House	November 14, 2004
ARR-203	Amigos	November 21, 2004
ARR-204	Good Grief!	December 5, 2004
ARR-205	Sad Sack	December 12, 2004
ARR-206	Afternoon Delight	December 19, 2004
ARR-207	Switch Hitter	January 16, 2005
ARR-208	Queen for a Day	January 23, 2005
ARR-209	Burning Love	January 30, 2005
ARR-210	Ready, Aim, Marry Me	February 13, 2005
ARR-211	Out on a Limb	March 6, 2005
ARR-212	My Hand to God	March 6, 2005
ARR-213	Motherboy XXX	March 13, 2005
ARR-214	The Immaculate Election	March 20, 2005
ARR-217	The Sword of Destiny	March 27, 2005
ARR-215	Meet the Veals	April 3, 2005
ARR-216	Spring Breakout	April 10, 2005
ARR-218	Righteous Brothers	April 17, 2005

Season 3 (2005-2006)

No episodes have aired yet. The season premiere is set to air on Monday September 19, 2005 on Fox

Trivia

Michael Bluth's (Jason Bateman) first name is a sly reference to Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) of The Godfather movies. Like Corleone, Michael Bluth is the son of a wealthy and powerful family who is (somewhat reluctantly) forced to take over the family business due to the incapacity of the family's patriarch. The parallel extends to the order of birth, as Michael Corleone is the third born, after Santino and Alfredo, and Michael Bluth is the third born after GOB and Lindsay (Lindsay is the older twin of Michael). However, after assuming power, both are subsequently surrounded by brothers and sisters who constantly ask for money or scheme behind their backs. There is even a scene in which the eldest Bluth son GOB confronts Michael, claiming that, because he is older, he should have control of the company and is tired of not getting respect, a dialog nearly identical to Fredo's conversation with Michael Corleone over the same thing in The Godfather Part II. Equivocation is a recurring theme throughout the series.
In "The Immaculate Election" it is revealed that Steve Holt is GOB's son. This means that both of the men that Maeby is interested in are her cousins. She may have a third cousin in the works as well, since her uncle Michael was intimate with the compulsively-lying shyster Maggie Lizer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who first feigned blindness, then pretended to be pregnant by him, later confessed after her ruse was exposed, and then learned she had actually concieved a child and Michael may be the father.
Alia Shawkat and Mae Whitman play Mae 'Maeby' Fünke and Ann Veal respectively. Both characters are attracted to George Michael Bluth. Shawkat and Witman are friends in real life and played friends in the short lived show "State of Grace".
The episode "The Immaculate Election" pays homage to the movie Star Wars in several ways: When George Michael tapes his lightsaber moves, he is paying homage to/mocking the internet fad Star Wars Kid in which he emulates the awkward lightsaber combat. Steve Holt is revealed as being GOB's son, and in Buster's footage, which foreshadowed his missing hand.
In the episode "Public Relations", Jessie calls George Michael “Opie.” The Narrator (voiced by Ron Howard, Opie on The Andy Griffith Show) says "Jessie had gone too far and had best watch her mouth."

File:HenrythefonzZuckerkorn.JPG

Henry Winkler as Barry Zuckerkorn homaging the Fonz

In the episode "Altar Egos", Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler, Fonz on Happy Days) does the Fonz pose in the bathroom mirror.

Response

The show is a hit with critics but has not yet gained a sizeable audience. Despite its low ratings, the series has been renewed by Fox and will return for a third season during 2005-06.

It won five Emmy Awards in 2004, including "Best Comedy", "Best Casting", and "Best Writing in a Comedy" for the pilot episode. It also won the Television Critics Association Award for "Best Comedy" and "Outstanding New Series", the TV Land award for "Future Classic", and the Golden Satellite Award for "Best Comedy". Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth) and Jeffrey Tambor (George Bluth Sr.) also won Golden Satellites for their performances. It has been nominated for eleven Emmys for 2005.

Jason Bateman also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor In A Comedy Series in 2005.

Due to low audience turnout and to promote their highly anticipated re-broadcast of the animated series Family Guy, Fox announced that it would halt the production of the second season at 18 episodes, 4 episodes short of the planned season. (This cutback was satirized in the episode "The Sword of Destiny", in which the Bluth Company had an order to build 22 houses reduced to 18.) Despite fears that this was a prelude to cancellation, the network defended its actions claiming that the show would fare poorly during network sweeps period, and that it was simply a procedural matter. The network has renewed the show for the 2005-2006 season.

Celebrity guests on Arrested Development

The show frequently brings in celebrity guests. A partial list is included below.

External links