Now that somehow its cult audience has convinced God and everyone else to bring the show back (and by God I mean Hollywood, because they are God in this town), it was time for me to have a seat on the couch with an ice cream sandwich and see what all the hype was about. I was not an original Arrested Development fan. IFC started running the show at odd times here and there and I caught a few episodes. The only thing I could appreciate about it at that point was that it resurrected Jason Bateman. I love him. Turns out, AD is a well written, smart show with great acting. I really enjoyed every single episode. I can certainly see the draw of the off handed (pun intended) humor and senselessness of it. It obviously wasn’t as popular at the time or it would have lasted. It only later garnered its cult following, so why the desperate need to keep it going 10 years later? I can’t say I’m sure. Granted, I absolutely loved the episode entitled S.O.B’s where they were very blatantly pleading to save the show. That was genius. Right now everyone is buzzing about this Sunday’s Netflix release. In a way, it’s the movie everyone’s been waiting for. Fourteen episodes back-to-back to continue (complete?) the show in one giant sitting. From what we’re hearing it’s a super-sized epilogue, which might be all that fans really want. What happened to the Bluths? Which is awesome because how often do we want to know what’s happened to our favorite characters once we’ve parted with them at the end of a series? If there’s any success with this, though, does that mean more “reunion seasons” for other shows in order to give the fans what they want? Freaks and Geeks and My So Called Life are two others I can think of that fans were extremely upset to see go. MTV aired My So Called Life for years even though it was only a season long. Claire Danes and Jared Leto built their careers off that failed show. Freaks and Geeks hosted an impossible amount of talent during its short run and is still on the air thanks to IFC. Will they be next? Probably not. In fact, no. But this is an interesting precedent being set Arrested Development. Rather than take the Sex and the City path to disaster and making a movie out of it, we have the world’s first television sequel season (Futurama doesn’t count, it’s a cartoon). I’m interested to see what comes of it. I’m sure there’s the fear that it won’t live up to the audience’s outsized expectations, even if it’s just as fresh and strange as the original three seasons. There’s the very real chance it could fall flat and this will simply become a failed experiment. Especially considering that it’s exclusively on Netflix streaming. How smart is Netflix, by the way? I can imagine that their May subscriptions quadrupled over any other month in simple anticipation of this show. I guess I don’t really understand why one solitary season after a decade with no hope or promise for another or the always anticipated movie is something to get excited over. It’s like getting excited to be with the cousin you’re in love with because you just found out her mother was adopted only to be disappointed that you actually can’t be with her because she’s still considered family. Okay, maybe it’s not exactly like that, but you get my point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5ddjzGft0k Image Credit: Details...