After a fair bit of stop and start I've finally reached the end of Arrested Development's fourth season. There were moments where it resembled the show I remembered and I just sat back and enjoyed it, but more often than not I found myself drumming my fingers wishing I was doing something else: checking emails, putting on a wash, calling that friend that I meant to get back to ages back, and so on. It did become more assured in its second half, the Maeby and George Michael episodes worked particularly well (and, to a lesser extent, so did Gob's), but this probably has less to do with Hurwitz and co. finding their groove than the fact that after episode 8 we don't have to suffer through anymore Lindsay or George Snr. solo episodes.
Although I marvelled at the way Hurwitz juggled the different individual storylines over numerous timelines - clearly the only way he was going to get his cast together - it was in much the same way that I often marvel at Christopher Nolan's approach to complex story structure (most notably Inception): I'd be thoroughly impressed but ultimately unmoved. Of all the pieces of plotting which were set-up to be revisited and re-contextualised, the only joke that landed for me was finding out the sex-offenders were George Michael's neighbours. When one sex offender meets an oblivious GM he turns to his fellow pedophiles and yells "He's 22 but looks 16! He's 22 but looks 16!" It was also the only time over the 15 episodes that I laughed out loud. Any other time Hurwitz showed a situation from a different perspective and made me reevaluate I just nodded and thought: oh, that's rather ingenious. Which is how I felt about this season as a whole; a cursory nod, appreciating the smarts behind it all, but no laughter.
With the jumps back and forth, covering a seven-year period, I was often hazy on what-had-happened-to-who, and when. Hurwitz is clearly having fun layering the jokes, but I would have sooner seen the characters get standalone stories set in one time period. Catching up with them over seven years, changing nothing about the aesthetic of the show to help us gauge where we are in the timeline, left me frustrated - but more than that, it left me not caring.
Arrested Development is an ensemble show. Unfortunately that's not what we got this go round, and unless the main cast are all simultaneously fired from their other recurring roles it's not likely to ever happen. I say leave it be. You shouldn't always get six seasons and a movie.
Overall: 5/10
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