“I’ve made a huge mistake.”
It may have been a while since you’ve heard GOB’s famous catch phrase, but there’s more where that came from.
Arrested Development Season 5 dropped today on Netflix . Creator Mitch Hurwitz promised that this season would be more in keeping with the original three seasons of Arrested Development, which aired from 2003 to 2006. But that might not be the only thing keeping viewers from reliving the delight of the original seasons.
Here’s how the story goes:
When the original three seasons aired on Fox in the early aughts, the show failed to get enough viewership and the series was cancelled. However, a cult following emerged that only grew stronger as the show was picked up by various streaming services.
Netflix signed a deal in 2013 to bring back Arrested Development for a fourth season, ten years after the series premiere aired on Fox.
While it was a valiant effort, the creators struggled to get the large band of cast members, many of whom had risen to new levels of fame, in a single location at once. This made for a disjointed and confusing season 4, with each episode dedicated to a different character’s story. In short, it wasn’t the Arrested Development we had spent 10 years loving.
Hurwitz went back to the drawing board on season four recently, ‘remixing’ the edits to transform the season into something more cohesive.
And today, Season 5 lands on Netflix.
But even with the remix, the series still faces a huge publicity problem.
About a week ago, the cast of Arrested Development sat down with The New York Times for an interview as part of the show’s press tour. In the interview, the cast is asked about allegations against Jeffrey Tambor (George Bluth Sr.) on the set of Transparent, as well as an incident where Tambor admitted to lashing out at Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth) in a Hollywood Reporter interview.
If you haven’t read the interview, I suggest you do so now.
As Jessica Walter explains through tears that she’s never been treated in sixty years of working the way that Tambor treated her, her male costars (most notably Jason Bateman) went on to defend Tambor and excuse his behavior. Needless to say, this created a huge backlash and drove Netflix to cancel all appearances on the cast’s UK press tour.
Bateman, alongside Tony Hale and David Cross, later apologized for what they said in the interview.
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