Sunday, February 12, 2006
Sooo, Arrested Development. I’ve just had two months of intensive watching of seasons 1-3, in that rare heady ‘OMG I love this show’ onslaught kind of way.
Stage 1 (late 2003): I read on ye olde forums of the Fametracker that there is a new show called Arrested Development and it be the good. I assume that it’s still a regular kind of sitcom, but well enough recommended by people with similar tastes that I’ll give it a try once it reaches the UK. And well, I’ll give most comedies a try if they have a decent enough provenance.
Stage 2: Arrested Development lands on to BBC2’s schedules. I finally see it, kind of go “Eh, what the heck is with the staircar, why is the dad in prison, I don’t really understand, but bits are quite entertaining.” And “Lord, Tobias is annoying. And GOB ain’t half as funny as he thinks he is.”
Stage 3 (spanning approximately 2 years): Randomly manage to catch bits of seasons 1 and 2 when the following factors collide...
a)can be bothered
b)know what time it is on
or, c)still awake enough and bothered enough to set video recorder before its transmission time and sleeeep.
Stage 4: When I catch it, I like it, often amused by it, but still the ‘can be bothered’ factor prevents it from becoming a ‘must record’ show. Like it enough to put the season 1 DVDs on my birthday list. Finally get the DVDs the following Christmas.
Stage 5 (Jan 2006): Get round to watching season 1 DVDs. After approximately 3 episodes, get immediately obsessed. Appreciate the Tobias and the GOB far more. Knowing at this point the parlous state of the show and so hoping to spin out the wealth, as well as lacking monetary funds, I try to hold out a while before buying season 2 DVDs. I fold like a cheap hooker, while having my ‘Second-most Crap Week Ever In The Life of Me’, and order the season 2 DVDs from playusa.com. They arrive. They pretty with their slip-cover and separate case-thingies. Very, very, pretty (for some reason far nicer than the Region 2 versions, and, happily, cheaper).
Stage 6: Yet again try to hold out for the season 3 episodes. I succumb to watching episodes 1-9, minus ep 5, via various means, mostly because I know that I will get spoiled for the last 4 episodes either by accident or by my own stupidity (hello, person who has got spoiled for America’s Next Top Model every. single. season. And yes, that show is the biznitch so shut up).
Stage 7: Watch last four episodes the day after they air. Caught up in a ‘This Is The Bestest Thing Ever’ frenzy. My hand was over my mouth so many times, and I really will cry if there is not any more made. And, whoo, a set dressing gag. You don’t get that so often.
It’s a strange thing, the mourning. I’ve tried to rationalise the situation by going, “Eh, if it was a British programme, it’d be unlikely to have spawned even half the number of episodes in production”, but the difference is that those BBC/Channel4 shows set out to have maybe two to five series of 6-episode-runs, whereas because this is produced in the American set-up, the 22-episode season is expected and prepared for. You can see the money spent on the production of Arrested Development, which you’d be very unlikely to see on a British comedy. I’m a great believer in the theory that smaller funds for a show leads to a focussing of the mind towards imaginative writing, but while I find it difficult to imagine AD without that money and production values, they never mis-used that bang-for-your-buck. The money is always there on screen, well-used, and the writing never took that for granted.
I will be here, crouched in a fetal position under my desk, until I hear the final death knell for Arrested Development, because as beautiful the tie-ups in the final episode were, it still feels like there is more to come. For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. And hell, I’ll be frightfully annoyed if that was the final curtain, because I want more.
Stage 1 (late 2003): I read on ye olde forums of the Fametracker that there is a new show called Arrested Development and it be the good. I assume that it’s still a regular kind of sitcom, but well enough recommended by people with similar tastes that I’ll give it a try once it reaches the UK. And well, I’ll give most comedies a try if they have a decent enough provenance.
Stage 2: Arrested Development lands on to BBC2’s schedules. I finally see it, kind of go “Eh, what the heck is with the staircar, why is the dad in prison, I don’t really understand, but bits are quite entertaining.” And “Lord, Tobias is annoying. And GOB ain’t half as funny as he thinks he is.”
Stage 3 (spanning approximately 2 years): Randomly manage to catch bits of seasons 1 and 2 when the following factors collide...
a)can be bothered
b)know what time it is on
or, c)still awake enough and bothered enough to set video recorder before its transmission time and sleeeep.
Stage 4: When I catch it, I like it, often amused by it, but still the ‘can be bothered’ factor prevents it from becoming a ‘must record’ show. Like it enough to put the season 1 DVDs on my birthday list. Finally get the DVDs the following Christmas.
Stage 5 (Jan 2006): Get round to watching season 1 DVDs. After approximately 3 episodes, get immediately obsessed. Appreciate the Tobias and the GOB far more. Knowing at this point the parlous state of the show and so hoping to spin out the wealth, as well as lacking monetary funds, I try to hold out a while before buying season 2 DVDs. I fold like a cheap hooker, while having my ‘Second-most Crap Week Ever In The Life of Me’, and order the season 2 DVDs from playusa.com. They arrive. They pretty with their slip-cover and separate case-thingies. Very, very, pretty (for some reason far nicer than the Region 2 versions, and, happily, cheaper).
Stage 6: Yet again try to hold out for the season 3 episodes. I succumb to watching episodes 1-9, minus ep 5, via various means, mostly because I know that I will get spoiled for the last 4 episodes either by accident or by my own stupidity (hello, person who has got spoiled for America’s Next Top Model every. single. season. And yes, that show is the biznitch so shut up).
Stage 7: Watch last four episodes the day after they air. Caught up in a ‘This Is The Bestest Thing Ever’ frenzy. My hand was over my mouth so many times, and I really will cry if there is not any more made. And, whoo, a set dressing gag. You don’t get that so often.
It’s a strange thing, the mourning. I’ve tried to rationalise the situation by going, “Eh, if it was a British programme, it’d be unlikely to have spawned even half the number of episodes in production”, but the difference is that those BBC/Channel4 shows set out to have maybe two to five series of 6-episode-runs, whereas because this is produced in the American set-up, the 22-episode season is expected and prepared for. You can see the money spent on the production of Arrested Development, which you’d be very unlikely to see on a British comedy. I’m a great believer in the theory that smaller funds for a show leads to a focussing of the mind towards imaginative writing, but while I find it difficult to imagine AD without that money and production values, they never mis-used that bang-for-your-buck. The money is always there on screen, well-used, and the writing never took that for granted.
I will be here, crouched in a fetal position under my desk, until I hear the final death knell for Arrested Development, because as beautiful the tie-ups in the final episode were, it still feels like there is more to come. For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. And hell, I’ll be frightfully annoyed if that was the final curtain, because I want more.
