Casual Cogitations

Arrested Development is the funniest show on television in recent memory, and, in my opinion, bows only before Friends as the funniest show I've ever seen. How dare I make such a brazen claim? I challenge you to acquire watch the first season by any means necessary and watch it. If you sit stone-faced throughout these episodes, I would submit you are either (a) in a coma or (b) wouldn't know what funny is even if it sat on your head and peed on you.

Granted this strong language is frowned upon in our post-modern society of self-esteem bolstering and back-patting, where tastes are deemed relativistic and subjective—but screw it. This show is a breath of fresh air, Actually, strike that; it's a typhoon of goodness that blows away the mildewed, formulaic flotsam that poses as thirty-minute comedy these days. If you're offended when I call you stupid for not liking Arrested Development, tough. That's what you are—stupid!

Well, in this age of decaying television, where a sewage-ridden onslaught of half-assed reality shows seems to be slowly overtaking quality, innovative scripted television—oddly enough this show didn't top the ratings, I know, something is rotten in Denmark.

What separates creator Mitchell Hurwitz's baby from the rest of the pack is the premise of the show: it doesn't play by the rules. There is no formula. There is no laugh track. There are no sweet, sappy-song-driven morals at the end (though they are lampooned).

What you do get is:

The best ensemble cast working on television

From Bateman's deadpan-perfect timing, to Arnett's supernatural sleaziness, to Cross's self-effacing nebbishism, the cast is money. Portia de Rossi's Lindsay, though quite funny, is the only weak link; her character is too one-dimensional. But she would nonetheless be the stand-out in any other series. And that's the most illustrative comment I can say about this cast—each character is so great, they could individually anchor shows. Besides Gob, my favorite is Michael Cera's George Michael. The hardest gut laughs always come from scenes involving this clueless kid.

Multi-layered comedy

Repeated viewings of Arrested Development reveal new gags and jokes. The writers pack so much stuff in their 22 minutes, you might miss something the first time through. They do this by sloughing off the sitcom formula—the show is filmed like a documentary, a creative approach that just opens up the options for the creators to go wild.

Ludicrous narratives

Anything is possible with the Bluth Family. How about a faux drug bust featuring male strippers dressed as cops? An on-the-fly marriage resulting from a series of dares? A "blind" attorney who's faking being blind—but her seeing-eye-dog really is blind? Each episode introduces outlandish plots. Some carry on for several episodes—Buster's relationship with the vertigo-stricken best friend of his mother, the shady dealings of the family attorney, the impossible crush George Michael has for his cousin—and some wrap themselves up by episode's end. Again, a testament to the innovative style.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

"I think that the seal with the yellow bow-tie might be the one that I released into the sea after giving it a taste for mammal blood..." muses a very serious Gob on Arrested Development. It's not just lines like this that make this show brilliant, it's lines like that combined with celebrity cameos, brilliant dead-pan acting, running gags that go throughout the entire season, and some of the best pop culture references outside of Family Guy. In short, if you're not watching this show, you should be arrested.