Review of Arrested Development Season 1

By John Brogan

The Bluth family. A family you can’t help but feel a strange kindred spirit with, as the events they deal with on a daily basis seem to throw the family into the deep end. Yet somehow, they always see themselves out of these situations with apt hilarity and class. Arrested Development is a show that came out in the mid 2000’s to the praises of plenty of critics but suffered from a lack of public popularity, leading to its cancellation before its time, but it has been picked up by the online streaming giant Netflix.

But enough about the history of the show, what even is the show about? It deals with the day to day antics of the Bluth’s, a family that has made its fortune from selling frozen bananas dipped in various delicacies. From the very first episode however, the family and its company are in shambles due to shady business dealings of the patriarch of the family George Bluth. He is interred by police due to charges of embezzlement and ‘’light treason’’. The middle son, and the main character in the show, Michael Bluth, has been working for the business for many years, and has been patiently waiting for a promotion, but after the events of the first episode, is forced to stay with the family and keep it together. These are just two of the characters in this show that has some of the most witty and well written characters I’ve seen since out of the 2000’s. My personal favourite character was Tobias Funke, a hapless doctor who finds a new meaning in becoming an actor, although he is not that successful in doing so.

I would rate this show as one of my all-time favourites, as everything gels together quite nicely to form an affective piece about an affluent family that have lost it all, and the various schemes they get up to trying to climb back to the top of the ladder. The writing, actors and story play off against each other and, in my opinion, has firmly established Arrested Development as one of the best comedy shows from the last 15 years.