Arrested Development's third and final season

By the time Arrested Development entered Season Three, it was already living on a prayer. The network cut the season down to a measly 13 episodes, so the show was forced to prematurely conclude itself. The end result is a comedy television season that felt rushed and left this viewer feeling unfulfilled, even if it did deliver plenty of laughs along the way.

Being that the entire season is only 13 episodes, this DVD box set only includes two discs. Besides the episodes, there are a few short videos in the Bonus Material section, but I really wanted to see more of the stuff behind the scenes. I think fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly know the same pain of watching a really good show go down way before its prime, as watching this third and final season reminded me of the last inconclusive episode of Whedon’s wonderful but short-lived show.

I won’t bother to recap the first two seasons of this show because I’ve already written reviews of those seasons. Besides, if you started watching this show in the third season, you probably wouldn’t get as much out of it as somebody who was there from the beginning. You surely won’t get a lot of the jokes. In a nutshell, this show concludes the legal problems faced by the Bluth patriarch, played by Jeffrey Tambor.

The Bluth family is made up of a bunch of losers and crooks, but they are still fun to watch sometimes. This third season doesn’t include any new characters or implement many major character developments, but rather keeps things going as they were established in the previous two seasons. Some funny things do happen between the two cousins who are sort of in love with each other, and that relationship does yield a couple of funny surprises. Besides them, Tobias (David Cross) is still a blatantly closeted homosexual, Gob (Will Arnet) still doesn’t know how to behave, and Buster (Tony Hale) still acts like a little boy trapped in a man’s body.

The main character in this show is played wonderfully by Justin Bateman, and his real-life sister Justine Bateman even makes an appearance in an episode appropriately named Family Ties. In that episode, he thinks Justine’s character might be his long lost sister, but it turns out she is something else entirely. It’s a hilarious episode that pushes a lot of limits for broadcast TV. Justin’s on-screen sister (Portia de Rossi) still doesn’t know how to act like a normal person, though some of her scenes with Tobias were great.

In my review of Season Two, I gave a pretty detailed explanation of why I thought this show failed. This season served to reinforce my opinion that the show was too edgy for television. Much of the humor is based on satire and witty pop culture references, and I’m afraid a lot of that stuff goes over the head of what I like to call ‘general audiences’. In other words, this show was smarter than the average viewer.

Arrested Development was smart, witty, and funny. Unfortunately, it seems like most TV shows these days can’t be smart or witty unless they are about lawyers or cops. Just look at what shows are getting all the ratings these days, and you’ll see how dumbed down the show needs to be in order to make it. The producers of this show made a commendable effort at trying to make something for the rest of us, but I guess there just were enough of us tuning in at the time.

In conclusion, I will share with you what a good friend shared with me regarding this show. Before I ever saw the first episode, he told me that this third season is obviously rushed and not as good as the previous two, but it is still worth seeing because the entire series was still worth seeing. Yes, Season Three is too short and the plotline is forced, but it still deserves to be viewed, especially if you already invested your time in the first two seasons.

As for the future of Arrested Development, it is anyone’s guess. This season concludes in such a way that it leaves plenty of doors open for more episodes, another season, or possibly even a movie. I have a feeling that we may have not heard the last of the Bluth family.

See also:
Arrested Development: Season One - http://www.epinions.com/content_308102532740
Arrested Development: Season Two - http://www.epinions.com/content_331611344516