Arrested Development (season 4) | |
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Country of origin | United States |
No. of episodes | 15 |
Release | |
Original network | Netflix |
Original release | May 26, 2013 |
Season chronology | |
The fourth season of the television comedy series Arrested Development premiered on Netflix on May 26, 2013 and consists of 15 episodes. This season serves as a revival to the series after it was canceled by Fox in 2006.
The show's storyline centers on the Bluth family, a formerly wealthy, habitually dysfunctional family, and the show incorporates hand-held camera work, narration, archival photos, and historical footage.
Each episode of the season occurs over approximately the same stretch of time, but focuses on a different character. Information on events depicted in a given episode is often partial and filled in by later episodes.
Six years after the series was canceled by Fox, filming for a revived fourth season began on August 7, 2012. The season consists of 15 new episodes, all debuting at the same time on Netflix on May 26, 2013, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, and the Nordics. Several actors who had recurring roles in the original series returned to reprise their roles, including Henry Winkler as Barry Zuckerkorn, Mae Whitman as Ann Veal, Ben Stiller as Tony Wonder, Scott Baio as Bob Loblaw, Judy Greer as Kitty Sanchez, and Liza Minnelli as Lucille Austero, while new characters are played by John Slattery, Terry Crews and Isla Fisher. The plot of the season focuses on the fictional production of a film based on the Bluth family scandal and what the characters have been doing since 2006. There were plans to have George Clooney make a cameo appearance for a joke centered on Mitt Romney but it never came together.
The show format is different compared to previous seasons: each of the fifteen episodes focuses on one individual character—with every episode happening at the same time within the show's universe—showing the character's activities since the conclusion of the third season. According to Jason Bateman, "If I'm driving down the street in my episode and Gob's going down the sidewalk on his Segway, you could stop my episode, go into his episode, and follow him and see where he's going".Michael Cera joined the writing crew for season 4, the first cast member to do so.Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and creator Mitchell Hurwitz previously stated that season four would be the final season of the show, and that the revival serves as a "one-off" and "act one of a movie". But, a Netflix spokesperson later went on to say, "We're hopeful there will be more seasons" and "...by no means is this the end of it. We're definitely planning to do more with them."