DVD rambling: worthwhile Development
As is so often the case, my first impression of a TV show or movie was wrong; in this case the hilarious, short-lived comedy Arrested Development. I was not too impressed the first time I checked it out, but I started watching it when the G4 Network began running it this fall, and now I'm hooked. I got the entire series DVD set as a Christmas present and now I've watched it all the way through -- there's slightly less than 20 hours' worth of material: each episode is 22 minutes or so, and there were only 53 episodes: 22 the first season, 18 the second, 13 the third and last, when Fox took it off the air for Skating With America's Next Big Fat Obnoxious Wife-Swapping Idol or something. At first, I was actually repelled by its cleverness rather than taken in by it, but it really is (was) a show you need to see in sequence (which the G4 Network allows, since they often run four episodes in a row) to appreciate all of the humor, which is probably why I (and a bigger audience) didn't get it at first. Highly recommended; lots of guest stars (Liza Minelli, Charlize Theron, Heather Graham, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller, Ed Begley, Jr., Carl Weathers (as himself)) to get your attention, but it's series regulars Jason Bateman, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter (the latter two have been great in everything they've been in) who bring the major funny to every episode.


