So I've just finished watching Arrested development Season 1. Arrested Development? What's that? You scum. It's sad but true that this sitcom was criminally underrated and outside hard-core comedy circles very few people will know about it. Which is a shame - as it's damn good.
The plot centres on the Bluth family, a once wealthy family which runs into trouble after the CEO is arrested for shifty accounting practices. The majority of the family are vain, lazy, puerile, childish, selfish, narcissistic, self-centred, materialistic, manipulative, immensely stupid and various other negative attributes with the exception of the only real sane character in the show Michael Bluth, the central character that has to get the family back on the right track. The family speaking of which is played brilliantly by a superb cast. Particular stand outs for me were Jessica Walter as the deviously nasty Lucille Bluth, Jason Bateman as the sane and sensible Michael Bluth, Will Arnett as the ridiculously over-dramatic Job Bluth and finally my personal favourite out of the entire show - David Cross as the well-meaning yet ultimately idiotic Tobias Funke.
Now, originally I had reservations about the show. Reading up on it, the majority of reviews talked about how it was "gag-heavy" and fits "more gags in and episode than The Simpsons". This originally put me off as it reminded me off Family guy. I have always loathed Family Guy for being pretty much a series of needless and absolutely irrelevant pop culture references with little to no resemblance to the plot, the whole show is run on "gags". So I was a little wary. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the gags and cutaways fitted in perfectly with the plot and weren't annoying or distracting.
Also, the massive 25 episode box-set seemed a quite daunting task at first. But as each episode is only 20 minutes long it really wasn't a horrendous chore that would take up all my time. So major kudos to the writers (and to some extent the editors) for managing to make brilliantly written, superbly crafted and very funny episodes in only the painfully short time of 20 mins.
So finally a sharp, fast-paced excellent show that you really should of watched by now. And if you haven't...how can you live with yourself?
