David Farnor | On 01, May 2018

Arrested Development Season 4 is officially coming back to Netflix this Friday – but not as you know it.

Season 4, of course, premiered on Netflix back in 2013, but the 15-episode run wasn’t what fans expected: following each character individually per episode, the pace was slower, the runtime longer and the hyperactive laughs of the original ensemble comedy fewer. Last year, though, creator Mitch Hurwitz announced that he was working on a recut version to turn the new-look Arrested Development into the old-look classic show.

Now, Hurwitz has taken to the show’s official Twitter account to reveal that the remixed Season 4 will arrive on Netflix on Friday 4th May, to mark the traditional Bluth holiday of Cinco de Cuatro. The recut version will span 22 episodes, with storylines cut between each episode.

“The original season four of Arrested Development on Netflix, as some of you know, experimented with a Rashomon-style of storytelling — with each episode dedicated to the adventure of one member of the Bluth family,” he wrote. “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.”

“I had time to take that Rashomon-type story and recut it… as an experiment to find out, well… I guess if I could make some money,” he joked. “I also pursued it as a comedic experiment to see if new jokes and a new perspective would emerge.”

He described the end result as “funny in a whole new way”, giving it the official title of Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences.

However, that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be any delay to Season 5, which filmed last summer. “A new fifth season of Arrested Development will be coming back to Netflix soon. Like real soon,” he added.

Until the new old season arrives, you can catch up with our reviews of it here.

On the next… Arrested Development pic.twitter.com/NjP26k9KE7

— Arrested Development (@arresteddev) May 1, 2018

 

Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences is available on Netflix UK, as part of an £9.99 monthly subscription.

 

 

Mitch Hurwitz has recut Arrested Development’s fourth season

20th May 2017

Here’s some good news that’s as refreshing as having a mango in your mouth: Arrested Development’s fourth season has been recut.

Season 4 was one of the streaming service’s high-profile early originals, reviving the cancelled comedy to the delight of Bluth fans everywhere. Until, that is, they watched them and found them longer, slower and freed from the hyperactive ensemble format of the first three seasons, instead focusing on one character at a time.

Work has since been done, though, to convert them back into the classic AD style.

Speaking to Esquire about his new Netflix series, Lady Dynamite, Hurwitz confirmed that there is a recut “like the old Arrested Developments”, with new narration of a “few little” reshoots to fit it all together.

“Now we have 22 episodes, and they’re delightful to watch and they’re much less work than the Netflix series,” admitted Hurwitz.

The shorter, approximately 20-minute episodes, though, may not appear on Netflix – at least, not just yet, as Esquire reports that the changes have been done so they can be aired on traditional TV.

“My hope is we’ll find a place to air those,” said Hurwitz.

He also said that Season 5 will “definitely” happen, although not before the US election. In fact, a script’s already been written to incorporate the Presidential race, Donald Trump, and more timely topics

“I’m always trying to move forward with that project regardless of what else is going on in my life,” he added.

“One of the challenges has been a big studio owns it and they don’t make TV this way typically. They sign actors for multiple years of a show, and then they shoot. We’ll get half of the actors available and we won’t quite commit to making the deal, then we’ll lose the other half of the actors. I spent some time in the writers room developing an outline for the next season or seasons if we’re able to make a deal. I’m trying very hard to get it done because we have a great story to tell. The clock is ticking. We were putting up a wall before Trump was. There were so many things like that. We had a political race that was going to continue in the fifth season.”

“It’s definitely going to happen,” he continued. “I say that because the actors want to do it, the studio wants to do it, Netflix wants to do it, I want to do it. It’s just making it happen. There’s no one resisting.”

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