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Great article from Friday's San Francisco Chronicle:

'Arrested' is the next 'Seinfeld'
Tim Goodman
Friday, April 2, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

Article Link HERE

If the television gods have anything to do with it, "Arrested Development" will be the new "Seinfeld."

Now, that's not a title to blithely toss around. But rarely has there been a comedy so fully developed, so presently overlooked, as to be exactly the kind of gem where, in two years and a billion magazine covers and countless paeans to its inherent brilliance, we'll all look back in amazement at the series' first tragically ignored season and think, wow, how did we miss that?

Although there are differences -- "Seinfeld" had a few sputtering starts before catching fire and becoming the best and funniest American sitcom of the modern era (modern being when formula was scorned and irony became king) -- the similarity is that if Fox exercises patience, people will come around to "Arrested Development" as they did "Seinfeld."

And, in turn, "Arrested Development" will deliver the genius.

There are four episodes of "Arrested Development" left, starting at 9:30 p.m. Sunday. From there, it's likely the fate of the series -- which has received off-the-charts critical acclaim but relatively meager Nielsen numbers -- won't be decided until May, when the networks announce their fall schedules to advertisers and the media at the "upfronts" in New York.

At this moment in time, like "Seinfeld" before it, "Arrested Development" is an underappreciated slice of comedic perfection, its writing so good as to be staggering and the acting both subtle and wildly physical, a meshing of words and deeds we haven't seen since, well, since "Seinfeld."

"Arrested Development" is far and away the best sitcom on broadcast television and arguably in a bar-brawl with HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as the best comedy on all of television. So why is no one watching -- no one being relative to the American masses and those with Nielsen boxes?

Who knows -- this isn't a thesis paper or an attempt to find the source of the Nile. But nobody much watched "Seinfeld" in the early days, either, but they were eventually led there somehow, some way. Fox just needs to show the patience necessary to wait for the world to catch up. The last network to show any real patience with a sitcom was CBS -- and that sitcom was "Everybody Loves Raymond," which worked out just fine in that it helped revitalize a moribund network.

A cynic might ask why Fox should hope and pray people find this show if, in relative terms, they haven't after 18 episodes. Wasn't a 22-episode, full- season order faith enough? Well, it was faith, but not enough. That may only come with 22 more episodes and, here's the painful part, maybe more after that. But unlike other really great sitcoms that never went anywhere -- many of them birthed, then killed, by Fox -- "Arrested Development" is not just a sitcom with potential, not just 22 roughly funny minutes that deserve a break.

On the contrary, it came into the world, into Fox's Sunday fall lineup, fully formed, as clearly smart and stunningly well crafted as any sitcom ever has. Shot in faux documentary style and narrated by Ron Howard, the show's executive producer, it focuses on the Bluth family -- one of the most inherently dysfunctional clans ever -- and its fall from grace and fortune due to, among many things, embezzlement and stupidity.

At the core of the series is the one "sane" son, Michael, played by Jason Bateman in a career-defining role that is not just Emmy-worthy, but ought to be Emmy-winning. Where it looked, in the pilot episode, as if he were going to abandon his family of lazy losers, he has instead stuck around -- living with them in one of the model homes on an unfinished Bluth development tract - - to save them. This, naturally, takes some doing.

His father, George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor of "Larry Sanders" fame, which makes him a central participant in two of the best comedies of the last 25 years), is in prison for his misdeeds, regretting that he never used the office shredder. Michael's mother, Lucille, is a dour, sharp-tongued, manipulative monster prone to spending freely the money the family doesn't have. It's a performance by Jessica Walter that is so hysterically superior to any other on a sitcom that she shouldn't just win an Emmy, she should win it going away.

(That's two Emmys, if you're counting.)

Michael's efforts at propping up the sagging Bluth fortunes are hindered by the fact he is trying to do right by his 13-year-old son, George Michael (Michael Cera), while it might just be easier to cheat and manipulate and get ahead by any means necessary -- like everybody else in the world. Bateman serves as the straight man to a gallery of buffoons, including older brother George Oscar Bluth II (Will Arnett), a loser magician who prefers to be called "an illusionist" and goes by the name GOB; sister Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), a self-centered spend-a-holic who married the sexually ambiguous Tobias Funke (David Cross), who lost his medical license after giving CPR to a sunbathing man who didn't need it. The two have an over-indulged 14-year-old daughter, Maebe (Alia Shawkat), whose lack of smarts and penchant for trouble-making is a deadly combination. Rounding out the cast is youngest brother, Buster (Tony Hale), who spent 11 months in the womb and is, because of this, a mama's boy of the highest order. His naive way and history of pampered, useless education, are of no use in the wilds of the real world and, in combination with the rest of his siblings, he's just another weight dragging down big-hearted Michael.

Now, injected into this perfectly created, deftly written series is a string of wonderful cameos -- from Liza Minnelli to Henry Winkler and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. But what makes the series levitate is the writing, which cleverly and subtly puts the Bluth family in a series of ever-worsening situations that allow jokes to be both ludicrously visual and verbally adroit, with punch lines that never pause for a laugh.

One of the real surprises in this series -- precisely the reason it deserves at this moment to be favorably compared to "Seinfeld" -- is that "Arrested Development" has improved with each episode and hasn't, in a full 18 episodes, had one creative misstep. This is a dazzling creative achievement.

Now, it's been suggested that "Arrested Development" is somehow too subtle or ironic or something for the "rest" of America to get. That's nonsense. This is a series that's merely waiting to be discovered and, like "Seinfeld" before it, enough patience, adoring word of mouth and critical acclaim will make that happen. This is a show for all people. Once they find it, they will get it. But obviously not this season. Like fans of all underappreciated, wonderful TV shows, those people who have already found "Arrested Development" can't believe it's not a hit. Their worry about the future -- justified, by the way -- makes them certain that Fox is unaware of how truly special the series is. That, too, is nonsense. Fox executives know what they've got -- but the nature of the business trumps the nurture part.

Not always, of course. "The Seinfeld Chronicles" ran in July of 1989, got pulled, came back in May of 1990 as "Seinfeld," got shelved again, then aired in January of 1991. But it took two seasons after that and a shift from Wednesdays to Thursdays, before "Seinfeld" went from cult to national hit. Patience like that is rare, but CBS showed something similar with "Everybody Loves Raymond." In both cases, the shows were more than just very good. They couldn't be ignored. (Sometimes that doesn't translate into fulfilled potential -- just look at "Scrubs" on NBC, a series given chances, but possibly not the right ones executed the right way.)

Fox has aired many very good sitcoms, from "Action" to "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" (among many possible examples). But "Arrested Development" is not only stronger and funnier but it has a striking likability and wide audience appeal that the others may have lacked. Fox knows this. Now it needs to prove it has a strategy to get viewers to the show.

Part of a critic's duty is to rally around brilliance. Very often this fails -- whether it be "Sports Night" or "Cupid" or "EZ Streets" or "My So- Called Life" -- the examples are too many and too painful to recall in detail. But right at this moment Fox has in its possession a series that equates with HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and BBC America's "The Office," the finest examples of comedy on television in recent memory. Both those shows are beyond merely great -- they are instant classics.

"Arrested Development" has four more episodes. It won't be enough and Fox knows it. But bringing it back for 22 more next fall shouldn't even be a question. Fox has in its hand what TV Land dubbed a "future classic." Now it needs to wait for that future, to wait for the people.

E-mail Tim Goodman at tgoodman@sfchronicle.com.

©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

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Kitty,

I found it through my FAV TV infotainment website, TV Tattle.

www.tvtattle.com

The guy who runs it links articles from all around the country (and sometimes, other countries) on a nearly daily basis all about TV.

Not one of the best, but still had some great lines and scenes. Gotta love the whole Gilligan routine, especially with Gilligan "fulfilling his destiny" having taken all the money and retiring to an uncharted island with the stripper.....

Where do we know Gilligan from? He looks VERY familiar...I'm thinking Seinfeld?
EDITED: it hit me this morning...he's Parker Posey's yuppie husband in "Best In Show" (I want the bumble bee!" and he's the manager of Town Hall in "A Mighty Wind." I'll have to re-watch "Waiting for Guffman" to see if he's in that as well.

And don't you just love it that only Buster knows that Onyong speaks English and that Onyong is aware of the rivalry there? That is classic.

But is just me or is anyone else just getting bored with George Michael's crush on Maebe? Focus more on George Michael's insecurities and the like...and where is Maebe's ill twin sister? Too funny.

***************************

OH, in watching some this weekend that I had Tivo'd, there are two moments that are just so subtle that many people may have missed them, but when you realize what you saw/heard, they're perhaps two of the best moments of the season.

The first is from the Public Relations episode, where the girl goes to the Banana Stand to yell at GM. She opens by saying "Listen, Opie..." after which Ron Howard, as the narrator, says something about what she is doing and then says, "oh, and she had BETTER watch her mouth...."

The second is from the first Julia Louis-Dreyfus episode, when Michael sees her and runs into the Men's room at the courthouse. He's then joined by Gob and Henry Winkler as the lawyer. After strategizing, Michael leaves and Job says that he has to get home to the wife (insert laughing dude) and then Henry Winkler says that he has to run downtown. He is facing the mirror, takes a comb out to fix his hair, and then jestures with his arms and body....it was the Fonz move in front of the mirror. Laughed my ASS off.....