Fandom Friday – Arrested Development

The Fandom Friday is a weekly feature, with each blog post written by a new contributor.

This is the weekly post where either myself, or a guest blogger, talks about a new fandom. See, I’ve had the experience in my life where I’ve been made fun or put down about my particular fandoms. And that has made me feel pretty crappy. But I’ve also put down other fandoms as well.

So I’ve decided to change that. I’m opening my world up to new fandoms, and the best way to do that is to bring people in to write about various fandoms. I’m very excited about this segment.

If you guys are interested in becoming a guest blogger for the Fandom Friday, feel free to email me at whatanerdgirlsays at gmail.com or contact me HERE

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This week’s Fandom Friday is brought to you by…ME. Again.

Come on guys, don’t be shy, come join the fun and be a guest blogger. Its so easy! And I’m tired of hearing myself talk all the time :P

Anyway, here’s this week’s Fandom Friday!

Arrested Development

Arrested Development is a comedy TV show with four seasons. It originally aired back in 2003, and was cancelled after the finale of season 3 in 2006. It remained kind of a cult classic, in a way, with a huge cult following and still had a TON of fans. When it was released on Netflix, the fandom base for it only grew as more and more people were able to watch it. It became, much like Firefly or Freaks and Geeks, one of those shows that was cancelled way too soon.

Netflix responded to that, and created a fourth season, to be released only on Netflix, this past May of 2013, to show what the characters have been doing since the finale in 2006.

The show follows the Bluth family, a wealthy family in Orange County, California, who gets themselves into a little bit of trouble. Michael Bluth is ready to take over his father, George Sr’s company, The Bluth Company, and start to distance himself from his crazy family. His mom Lucille isn’t the affectionate type and is usually drunk by noon. His sister Lindsay is selfish and high maintenance. His brother in law Tobias is….very, very clueless. His brother Gob is a failed magician and his brother Buster is just straight up dumb. But just as Michael thinks he’s going to take over his company, his father is arrested for embezzlement, fraud, maybe even some “light treason”.

Okay, and the way I describe it, you’d think it sounds like a drama or something, but its not. Its straight up comedy. Michael is ready to take off to Arizona with his son, George Michael, to escape the ridiculousness that his family but after realizing that family is the most important thing (not breakfast), he decides to stay and do what he can to keep them together and to save the Bluth Company. The show follows all the hilarity that ensues from this and creates a seriously funny show.

The fourth season picks up a little later after the third season ends. Without spoiling it for you, the third season ends with about five million different things going on at once and you’re cracking up and you’re going “NO THIS CAN’T BE THE END!” The fourth season has 15 episodes, all of which debuted on Netflix on the same day. Each episode follows a different character in the series: Michael, Gob, George Sr., Lucille, Buster, etc. and it brings us an update on how the family has been doing since the chaos of the season finale of season three. I feel like a lot of the reviews I saw of this season were bad but I also saw a TON that were good as well and I thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Now the first time I watched it was with my boyfriend. My boyfriend is actually the WAY bigger AD fan, but he doesn’t want to guest write and he hates the word “fandom” haha so I’m writing it instead. The first time I watched the pilot episode of this show was with Jon, before we were even together. He was really excited to show, said I was going to love it and it was so funny. We watched the extended pilot together, and he’s cracking up the whole time and I remember sitting there, going, WHAT IS THIS? And not in a good way.

Because I didn’t understand the humor really. I didn’t really understand what the show was aiming for. I didn’t get it, definitely.

But Jon somehow persuaded me to keep watching, and as the show continued, I realized a lot of the humor came from inside jokes within the show, references to other episodes and just references to pop culture in general, and when I finally understood the show, and the humor, I couldn’t stop laughing.

This show is one of the funniest shows out there. There aren’t a lot of shows that make me literally laugh out loud, and there aren’t a lot of shows that I memorize quotes from (Doctor Who, of course). The amount of jokes, and inside jokes and stupid jokes and racist (in good taste, of course) jokes and stereotype jokes and jokes jokes jokes are just too much to handle. All of the characters are supposed to be as dumb as they are or clueless or selfish or whatever and you love them for it.

You love how clueless Tobias is, and the amount of sexual innuendos he manages to include in EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION. You love Lindsay and her blatant attempts to get laid and how they just NEVER work. You love that George Michael is totally in love with his cousin and is just the most awkward teenager I have ever seen in my entire life. Gob is one of the stupidest human beings I’ve ever met in my life but he’s lovable and his magic tricks are fantastic, and its Will Arnett and that guy is awesome.

I think one of the BEST things about the show is all the inside jokes, and one liners you get from it. I feel like I can quote Arrested Development randomly, more than I can quote a lot of things. They just have all these funny one-liners and all these one-liners that you can quote to an AD fan and they’ll start cracking up but if I tell you, you just won’t get it, like “there’s always money in the banana stand” or “no touching” or “I’ve made a huge mistake”. I love all the little lines that come out of the show. Each line they saw is pure comedic gold, and causes you to crack up.

Its one of my favorite shows.

Which definitely means you should watch it.

Seriously. All FOUR seasons are Netflix and you will bust through them so fast. This is hugely popular, a cult favorite, and it was a favorite enough for Netflix to buy the rights to it and create a whole new season 7 years later. If that doesn’t show you how amazing this show is, I don’t know what will. And any show that puts out a banana stand or stair car (watch the show, seriously) and creates huge lines for it, that’s a show well worth watching!

Free frozen bananas at the banana stand? Love it.

The Stair Car at the Grove in Los Angeles. You get a little bit of stares with this one.

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Seriously, this is a show people are missing out on and they shouldn’t be. I quote this all the time and people stare at me, and I’m like, “Look, if you just watch Arrested Development, this wouldn’t be a problem!” Because its a seriously funny show and its one that I think is very underrated and shouldn’t have been cancelled with it was. But it being cancelled kind of helped to push it back up, and gain more fans, much like what happened with Joss Whedon’s Firefly. So hit up Netflix (I know you have Netflix), and definitely try out this show.

And if the humor doesn’t catch you right away, like it did with me, give it a few more episodes and you’ll start cracking up soon enough :)

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I hope you guys enjoyed this week’s edition of Fandom Friday.

I really hope some of you can volunteer to participate in it as well :) I get tired of talking about the stuff I like, I want to hear more about the stuff YOU like!

Don’t forget to check out past Fandom Fridays, and last week’s post by Eilildh on Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Covenant series

3 thoughts on “Fandom Friday – Arrested Development

  1. Chloe says:

    As soon as you compared this to Firefly I was like “must watch!” When I move back to uni and get bored and lonely this is what I’m going to watch :) Hey if you’re looking for more writers for Fandom Friday I’ll write another one, for British Comedy or Shakespeare or something? I know I’ve done one already, so if you want someone else that’s fine :)

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