Welcome to a bonus Sitcom Tuesday (on a Wednesday) as I continue my study of Arrested Development (2003-2006, FOX; 2013, 2018-2019, Netflix), looking at the 2018 “Fateful Consequences” cut of Season Four, which is currently available on Netflix!

Arrested Development stars JASON BATEMAN as Michael, PORTIA DE ROSSI as Lindsay, WILL ARNETT as Gob, TONY HALE as Buster, DAVID CROSS as Tobias, MICHAEL CERA as George Michael, ALIA SHAWKAT as Maeby, JESSICA WALTER as Lucille, and JEFFREY TAMBOR as George and Oscar. With RON HOWARD as the Narrator.

Ahead of Arrested Development‘s fifth season, creator Mitchell Hurwitz went back to Four and re-edited the entire thing, reshaping 15 non-linear Rashomon-style episodes with varying runtimes and a rotating focus on individual characters into a somewhat chronological order of 22 episodes about 22 minutes in length, and with a more traditional narrative form. This was ostensibly done for potential syndication, but really, the original Four had gotten mixed reviews because it was complicated in a way that wasn’t popular — putting too much stock in hindsight and repeat viewings to bring compensatory value and offset initial confusion. And seeing this revision now exist as the version of Four in Netflix’s main collection (while you have to hunt for the original), it feels like a concession of defeat for the 2013 edit’s bold experiment. Now, if you haven’t read my take on the Original Cut, please do so, for this “remix” is based on its problems, boasting attempted remedies via insertions of footage, deletions of footage, tons of new narration, and a new structure that is not fully chronological plot-wise but endeavors to be easier to follow. How does it stack up? Well, it’s not a meaningful improvement, for the season’s long-form narrative ideas were convoluted by design and nothing can be done to totally straighten out something never intended to be straightforward in the first place. What’s more, while an obvious boost comes from the templated 22-minute form restoring a brisker pacing that’s more familiar to the FOX run, many of the self-referential callbacks and forwards that devotees champion as genius are now lost, and there’s something to be said for the fact that perhaps the Rashomon-esque rotating spotlight did give some individual arcs more focus. Additionally, there’s no getting around the basic problem — there’s too much story here (too much!), and so little of it is actually connected to the premise or the regulars as they’re defined in relation to each other, because we don’t see many of them together enough. As previously noted, this lack of direct interaction is a major hinderance to satisfying sitcommery, weakening foundational necessities like character and premise while other gaudier, conceptual markers of identity are erroneously championed as more important. Accordingly, this collection still doesn’t work — Rashomon exacerbated these issues, but they’re still here, with or without the gimmick.

Meanwhile, picking out my favorite samples is actually harder with this version of the season, for even though it’s more traditional in its structure, chopping up episodes that were initially plotted in character-specific chunks and now arranging them in a timeline that makes some (but not full) chronological sense doesn’t create a genuine narrative flow where everything feels cohesive and in accordance with this series’ prior command on story and how it’s told. Yes, it is snappier and more structurally like the Arrested Development of FOX, and to be fair, some of the lesser episodes from the original collection that weren’t as inherently funny and/or felt dragged out because they were uninterrupted do get improved here by this helpful editing. But that also means these episodes can be more inconsistent inside themselves now as well, and since I am unable to forget my awareness of the previous cut — which I saw first — I am overly conscious of how certain stories are being reorganized. In that regard, I can’t even pretend to view this version of the season with fresh eyes, adjudicating it as if it were the only way it ever existed, and I don’t believe I can go through the whole formal episode-picking process with specific commentary for each entry, as so many of the ideas that work here are the same ones I thought already worked in the other version as well — i.e., they’re guaranteed to be superior wherever they exist. That is, I’m sort of just picking the recut episodes that have a lot of material from the episodes I picked yesterday. For that reason, I’m going to list the ten that I would simply call the most enjoyable 22-minute entries, all things considered, but with only a few words about why. That’s the most I can offer, given the circumstances. (Oh, and please note that all of these installments were released on Netflix on May 04, 2018, ahead of Season Five.)

• Ep 02: “Three Half Men” — continuation of opener; premise well-invoked
• Ep 04: “Just Deserters” — some big comedy scenes, like Gob’s wedding
• Ep 06: “The Parent Traps” — the original premiere’s father/son beats
• Ep 10: “Recurring Dreams” — boasts the Tobias arrest centerpiece
• Ep 13: “Get On Up” — Michael-focused with Hollywood meta
• Ep 15: “Locked And Loaded” — plenty of funniest characters: Gob and Tobias
• Ep 18: “Turning On Each Other” — has a lot of my MVE from the original edit
• Ep 19: “Fast Company” — some really funny George Michael moments
• Ep 20: “Cinco De Cuatro (I)” — some good Buster stuff in finale lead-up
• Ep 22: “Cinco De Cuatro (III)” — the Michael/George Michael part of finale

Other notable episodes that merit mention include:

• Ep 01: “Re Cap’n Bluth” — premise naturally invoked via exposition
• Ep 07: “One Degree Of Separation” — much of the initial Maeby episode
• Ep 09: “Modern Marvels” — some funny stuff with Buster, Tobias, and Gob
• Ep 12: “Moving Pictures” — lots of Michael and some Hollywood
• Ep 14: “What Goes Around” — more Hollywood and more Tobias

*** The MVE Award for the Best Episode from the Season Four Remix of Arrested Development goes to…

“Turning On Each Other”

Come back next week for a new Wildcard! And stay tuned Monday for a musical rarity!