Fans of Arrested Development have been waiting years for another season of the dysfunctional Bluth family. The show returned for a fourth season on Netflix back in 2013, but it wasn't what a lot of fans were expecting. Season 4 was a Rashomon-style narrative that kept the Bluths separate for quite a long time, and viewers missed out on that dysfunctional dynamic that was so entertaining. Well, those who didn't love the style of Season 4 are in luck. Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz has remixed Season 4 into something new. Here's how he describes the remix:
But in between season 4 and this upcoming season 5 I had time to take that Rashomon-type story and recut it - shuffling the content from 15 individualized stories into 22 interwoven stories the length of the original series -- as an experiment to find out, well... I guess 'if I could make some money.' I mean, who am I kidding, I want this thing to syndicate eventually. But I also pursued it as a comedic experiment to see if new jokes and a new perspective would emerge from a remix that features all the Bluths in every episode, and where the simultaneity of the story plays out chronologically. And I'm really excited about the final result. It's funny in a whole new way, and I believe it creates a really entertaining and hilarious new experience for the 'viewer.'
The new twist on the fourth season will be called Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences, and fans don't have to wait much longer to see it. The 22 episodes of the remix will be available streaming on Friday, May 4 at 12:01 a.m. PT. If you want to experience Season 4 in a way that is similar to Seasons 1 - 3, you'll have your chance starting this weekend. It may not be Season 5, but it's something new.
Remixing 15 episodes in 22 episodes couldn't have been an easy task, even if Mitch Hurwitz was at least partially motivated by the hope of syndication someday. A lot happened in Season 4 that took the characters in very different directions, so cutting the story apart and then back together in some cohesive way had to be tricky. It should be interesting to see how the recut Season 4 compares both to the original Season 4 and the first three seasons of the series.
Even for fans who have already watched Season 4 more than once, the remix sounds like it should be worth watching. Of course, news of a remixed batch of existing episodes is probably not the Arrested Development news that diehard fans were hoping for at this point. After TV legend Henry Winkler recently dropped a hint that Season 5 would hit the web at some point this summer, the big Arrested Development question has been when new episodes would premiere. Mitch Hurwitz went on in his Facebook statement to say this about Season 5:
Anyway, I'm writing to you... with TWO exciting updates about Netflix and the series. The first is that a new fifth season of Arrested Development will be coming back to Netflix soon. Like real soon. Like, if you knew when, you would not be wrong to be thinking 'why are we all just hearing this now?'
Well, Mitch Hurwitz didn't go so far as to reveal when exactly we can expect the new season of Arrested Development on Netflix, but fans apparently won't have too much longer to wait, and Jason Bateman has already made a bold claim about what's to come. I'm guessing that the premiere date will be released on May 4 along with Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences, although only time will tell. For now, you can watch the first four seasons of Arrested Development streaming on Netflix. If you're still in the market for other series, take a look at our 2018 Netflix guide and our summer TV premiere schedule.
