In this Emmy®-winning comedy’s hilarious third season, Michael Bluth finally realizes that it’s his Uncle Oscar serving time in prison, not his father. Reluctant to spring Oscar due to the effect it may have on the family business, Michael decides that the only fair thing to do is to find his father and place him under house arrest. Yet once found, George Sr. insists he was tricked into working with the Iraqis, leaving Michael no choice but to investigate his father’s outrageous claim. But it isn’t until Michael and Buster go to Iraq on a rescue mission to save Gob that the depth of the devious plot is revealed…and Michael learns which family member is the real brains behind all the madness.Arrested Development–one of the greatest comedies in the history of television–went out in a blaze of glory. The truncated final season packed more biting humor per minute than ever before. In only 13 episodes, dozens of intertwining storylines spun in all directions: In addition to the overarching story about the fractious infighting of the Bluth family and the family’s housing development company being investigated for treason in Iraq (a plot arc that comes to a dazzlingly surreal conclusion), the put-upon “good son” Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman, Teen Wolf Too) pursues romance with a lovely British woman (Charlize Theron, Monster) who turns out to be woefully inappropriate; swaggering magician Gob (Will Arnett, Monster-In-Law) flees from his newly-discovered teenage son while still pandering for the affection of his self-absorbed father (Jeffrey Tambor, The Larry Sanders Show); flighty Lindsay (Portia de Rossi, Ally McBeal) and her sexually blurry husband Tobias (David Cross, Mr. Show) both get the hots for the family’s new lawyer, Bob Loblaw (Scott Baio, Charles in Charge); and much, much more. It’s difficult to describe what makes Arrested Development so brilliant. The ensemble is uniformly superb (Jessica Walter, as the family’s boozing, scheming matriarch, is particularly devastating this season) and the surprising guest stars (including Andy Richter, James Lipton, Justine Bateman, and many others) are perfectly cast; the characters’ abominable behavior defies conventional television notions of “likability”, yet they only grow more endearing the more you watch; the humor embraces wild slapstick and sharp satire, often within a single scene; and the nimble documentary style allows for sly glancing references to jokes and scenes from long-past episodes, rewarding devoted fans. But the key is that, no matter how screwball Arrested Development becomes, the show offers a rich, textured, and wonderfully coherent world in which these characters feel genuine, a world completely unlike the flat, plastic simulacrum offered by the average sitcom. Arrested Development was true to itself to the end. Its followers will cherish it forever. –Bret Fetzer
Stills from The Third Season of Arrested Development (click for larger image)
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Buy “Arrested Development – Season Three” For Only $17.93
April 11, 2008
#1
Don’t you hate it when you brag to all your friends about how something is so cool and when you finally show it to them it falls flat and you look like a fool. That’s how I feel about season 3 of Arrested Development. I cringe at how bad it is. I hope it gets canceled if it’s going to be this bad from now on. I don’t know what happened. It could be that there were different writers, the lack of Henry Winkler, the under use of Jeffery Tambor, the hieghtened absurdity of the David Cross gay jokes, the horrible retard plot or maybe it was never good to begin with and we all just built it up so much we let ourselves down. It’s not the latter. I recently saw season 1 again and it’s amazing. Season 3 is just bad, bad, bad. Matrix sequels bad.
April 12, 2008
#2
The first 2 seasons were better but on the whole this series was hilarious
and one of the smartest comedies on the TV.
April 12, 2008
#3
I never thought I would say it but I think that it may be a good thing that Arrested Development was cancelled.
Season 1 and 2 were brilliant for many reasons. I have watched those DVDs MANY times and each time I laugh just as hard as the first time I saw them. I typically catch at least one joke I missed in previous viewings.
I didn’t catch much of Season 3 on TV (due to Fox continually moving the time slot) so much of it was new to me as I sat and watched the DVDs. All I can say is , “What happened?!”.
The storylines are too drawn out – How many Wee Britain/Mr. F. episodes do we need?
It is too farfetched – Tobias’s Graft vs. Host disease was just plain stupid.
The jokes are not nearly as clever and are repeated ad nauseum – WE GET IT , Tobias likes men.
Next to Seinfeld the Series Finale of Arrested Development has to be the worst I have seen.
Lindsey is really not related to Michael and now she wants to sleep with him. WTF?
Lucille is able to pull the Queen Mary away from the dock in an effort to escape. WTF?
I could keep going but why?
Series 3 is a decent buy for Arrested Development fans who want the whole series but I know it won’t spend much time in my DVD player. If I want to see something funny i’ll put in any of the Season 1 or 2 episodes.
April 12, 2008
#4
Possibly because they had different writers.
Season Three Writers
MITCH HURWITZ **CREATOR**
CHUCK TATHAM **SEASON ONE WRITER**
JIM VALLELY **SEASON ONE WRITER**
DEAN LOREY **NEW WRITER**
JAKE FARROW **NEW WRITER**
KAREY DORNETTO **NEW WRITER**
RICHARD DAY **NEW WRITER**
RON WEINER **NEW WRITER**
SAM LAYBOURNE **NEW WRITER**
TOM SAUNDERS **NEW WRITER**
Writers M.I.A. from third season:
ABRAHAM HIGGINBOTHAM **MISSING**
BARBIE ADLER **MISSING**
BRAD COPELAND **MISSING**
CHUCK MARTIN **MISSING**
COURTNEY LILLY **MISSING**
JOHN LEVENSTEIN **MISSING**
LISA PARSONS **MISSING**
RICHARD ROSENSTOCK **MISSING**
I love the actors. I wish Fox had retained all the original writers. In season three, the repetition of jokes went too far and the tone of humor went downhill; less subtle and refined, more nasty and crude. David Cross has great range; why limit him to a couple of joke themes? The character development was sometimes too inconsistent with the first two seasons. I would like to have seen the riches to rags theme given more emphasis. The show needed more of the documentary feel and believeability. If Mr. Hurwitz can recapture the magic of seasons one and two, I hope he will make a movie version.
April 12, 2008
#5
I’m a little perplexed at the rave reviews for season 3 from some of the commenters here, many of whom seemed to come to the show late. It clearly didn’t match up to season 2, and was nowhere near season 1, which was probably the best season in the history of sitcoms, period. Minute for minute, season 1 was perfect. But the writers and cast started to panic halfway through season 2 when Fox still wasn’t promoting the show, and took an understandable guess that the network wanted zanier plotlines and as many jokes as could be crammed into 22 minutes, regardless of how it affected the flow. Introducing Rita as Michael’s love interest was a sad diversion – Charlize Theron can’t pull off a Brit to save her life – and the episodes were generally full of overacting. That said, season 3 was still better than 95% of TV that year, and I’ll be getting the DVD when it comes out. Fox has no one to blame but itself for the show’s demise, refusing to promote it, continually sticking it with bad timeslots, and keeping the writers and cast in constant limbo over its future. As Tim Goodman in the SF Chronicle said, the network was scared out of its mind that another network would make the show a ratings hit, and decided leaving it alone to die was better than freeing it for a network that would truly cultivate it. For shame.