Mitch Hurwitz and the cast of Arrested Development appeared together at a Netflix panel at the National Association of Broadcasters convention yesterday, and they gave up a whole bunch of details on just how this revival is gonna work. Vulture was there and captured all the juicy details.
Originally, Hurwitz’s plan had been to make the revival like an anthology, with each episode telling a somewhat self-contained story about a specific character. “That is now kind of evolving into becoming more like the old show again,” Hurwitz told a packed house of conventioneers, who politely applauded the introduction of other Netflix offerings (such as David Fincher and Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards) but exploded at the mention of Arrested and the arrival of cast members Will Arnett, David Cross, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter. The reason for the change: Hurwitz sees a chance to tweak the show’s format to take advantage of the fact that the full ten-episode season will debut at once, rather than over two-and-a-half months. “There’s something exciting about trying to break the form again,” he said.
Firstly, all 10 episodes are going to drop on Netflix streaming on the same day rather than them being released weekly like a traditional TV show. So that’s good for the bingers: after this years-long wait, you’ll be able to tear through the entire new season in less than five hours. As for what the episodes will actually be like:Well, that sounds pretty fucking exciting. And Hurwitz even mentioned that he’d be up for doing more seasons after this if it goes well. The bad news: we’re still a full year away from this, as they don’t even start shooting until this summer.
