It is of chief importance that we remember what watching Arrested Development was like from the outset. In that first season, in the very first couple of episodes, during the first time watching them ever, the jokes did not land all that well. The tone felt somehow off, as though the clever intentions were all too visible and the payoffs to the jokes were not as triumphant as the show seemed to think they were. When we think of Arrested Development now, most of us have a sense of the show that we’ve attained through multiple viewings of all three seasons, and many more discussions and musings with fellow fans, reminding each other of the countless gags, storylines and bits of dialogue that floored us. But each new episode was not always immediately beloved or accessible (even the fact that season 3 is lumped in with the previous two now is remarkable, considering the objections people had to it at the time). Such was the nature of the layered stories and jokes. You can’t get the whole thing the first time. That’s why we liked it so much, remember?
Not everyone remembers, because their response to the first three episodes was one of skepticism or even cynicism, being bored by the story and unimpressed by the humor. Watching the season a second time, though, it becomes immediately apparent that many of the moments that seemed slow or as though nothing was happening only seemed that way because we lacked context. With the full story at our disposal, complete with some recall of the punchlines that were to come, those first three episodes, especially the first one, are just as hilarious and compelling as the season’s latter half. There’s no reason to have any interest in Michael seeing a redhead in the hallway in episode one and saying “Gentlemen, start your engines,” and so this seems like a superfluous moment, throwing off the tight pacing and meaningfulness of every detail that we remember from the original series. But when we actually learn the meaning of that moment later in the season, it takes on a new meaning and becomes a hilarious detail.
One thing that is a guaranteed bore is the common trope, applied throughout popular culture, that “the original was better.” Good criticism is adaptable.
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