TV #23 of 2019:
Arrested Development, season 5
The first three seasons of this show were so good and so perpetually rewarding of a rewatch that it’s little surprise it caught on as a cult classic after its untimely cancellation in 2006. The initial Netflix revival in 2013 was a noticeable step down, but it still just about worked as a curiosity with some ambition behind its twisting timelines.
And now half a decade later there’s this latest batch of episodes, which is both another step down in quality and devoid of any similar redeeming structure. It’s just an increasingly tired cast of characters repeating their increasingly tired patterns, with callbacks to the better stuff awkwardly shoehorned in. The editing is also a problem, with lots of cross-talk played for laughs but actually just frustratingly hard to hear. I never thought I’d say this thirteen years ago, but I really hope they don’t make any more Arrested Development after this.
★★☆☆☆
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