Good news, Arrested Development fans! A revamped version of the previously released season 4 will be released this week… and, season 5 is officially on the way.
On Tuesday, the official Arrested Development Twitter page posted an open letter to fans from series creator Mitch Hurwitz, who announced that a remixed, revamped version of the (somewhat questionable) fourth season will hit Netflix on Friday May 4.
On the next… Arrested Development pic.twitter.com/NjP26k9KE7
— Arrested Development (@arresteddev) May 1, 2018
Released back in 2013, each of season 4’s 15 episodes focused on an individual character and “experimented with a Rashomon-style of storytelling,” noted Hurwitz. The new version, titled Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences, reimagines season 4 as a 22-episode adventure with interwoven storylines, much like the original three seasons of the hyper-dysfunctional family comedy, which aired on Fox from 2003-06.
“The goal was that by the end of the season, a unified story of cause and effect would emerge for the viewer — full of surprises about how the Bluths were responsible for most of the misery they had endured,” explained Hurwitz of season 4. “In some ways to be an experience for that viewer, perhaps, akin to eating toast, then some bacon— maybe a sliced tomato followed by some turkey, and realizing, ‘Hey, I think I just had a BLT.’ But in between season 4 and this upcoming season 5, I had time to take that Rashomon-type story and recut it — shuffling the content from 15 individualized stories into 22 interwoven stories the length of the original series — as an experiment to find out, well… I guess ‘if I could make some money.’ I mean, who am I kidding, I want this thing to syndicate eventually.”
Hurwitz said that he also “pursued it as a comedic experiment to see if new jokes and a new perspective would emerge from a remix that features all the Bluths in every episode, and where the simultaneity of the story plays out chronologically. And I’m really excited about the final result. It’s funny in a whole new way, and I believe it creates a really entertaining and hilarious new experience for the ‘viewer.’”
The new season 4 is coming out on Friday, and as for season 5, don’t worry, it’s “soon.”
