Spoilery Thoughts About Arrested Development, Avec Pictures

So, I figure four full days is enough of a waiting period to discuss the fourth season of Arrested Development. Plus, I'll be upfront with this warning – All of the fourth season is fair game for discussion in this entry! If you’re still pacing yourself through it, well, just bookmark it and read this later.

Anyway, on to the business at hand – The season doesn’t suck! Huzzah! Overall, I’d probably give it a seven or eight on the 10-scale. The first couple episodes start out slowly (and ye gads, what happened to Portia’s face?) but things really start to pick up once Michael gets the job at Imagine, and starts dating Ron Howard’s girlfriend daughter.

To nitpick, here are the three style and structure things that really jumped out at me and hurt the viewing experience:

Here is a picture of Isla, because she's gorgeous.

- As opposed to the standard network television sitcom model of about 22 minutes per show, I think the minimum for each episode of Arrested Development was around 26 to 27 minutes, with some of them even hitting the 31-minute mark.

While this is a seemingly minor thing – who minds having more of a good thing? – it resulted in a couple episodes feeling overly long to me. It didn’t feel like much ended up on the cutting room floor, and echoing the comments of my buddy Tom, they probably could have taken the sheers to a couple episodes.

Because each episode was a bit longer, it basically turned the usual sitcom three-act structure into four acts per episode. I would have preferred if they just sheared off five minutes from each episode, and stretched the season from 15 episodes to 19 or 20, roughly.

- Arrested Development made its money with frequent callbacks and intertwining plots when you least expected it, but it was tougher to track all of that with the “one season” format.

For example, in season three you had a couple different arcs, which usually only lasted from two to six episodes. The spy mystery of Mr. F gave way to the mentally-retarded dating storyline, which then transitioned into the series ending “save our Bluths!” telethon and the final episode.

With the fourth season, everything is more of a slow burn because of how stretched out everything is, plus there is constant recapping. Maybe they just assumed that people wouldn’t be binge watching episodes or familiar with the third season, but as a result, you get to see some of the final scenes from Lucille hijacking the Queen Mary about 500 times.

- There was a big hoopla on The Internet about the fact that some actors and actresses had to do their scenes via blue screen. I didn’t really think that specifically was such a big deal, but rather, you can tell that some limited availability for them probably really hurt the shooting schedule.

As a result, there aren’t many big ensemble scenes, or not as many as you would think with a show that has (essentially) eight leads – Michael, George Michael, GOB, Buster, Lucille, George Sr., Maeby, Tobias and Lindsay. When you factor in all of the accessory characters that they have to shoehorn in for fan service, plus that Barry Zuckerkorn is practically the ninth lead at this point, and new characters like Rebel Alley and on-camera appearances from Ron Howard…

That’s a daunting task, and I can understand why they mostly seem to focus on scene “clusters” of characters, for lack of a better term. It was fine at the beginning of my viewing, but by the end, you kind of figured out that there was usually just two to four characters per scene, and you didn’t have to worry about a walk-in by George Michael at the end.

But hey – Enough dwelling on the negative! As I mentioned at the top, I still found the fourth season really enjoyable, and better than most of the other sitcoms I’m watching on a weekly basis. In particular, I thought the high point of the season was Egg Bland Ann finally getting a well-deserved glory moment, with the straight-bait trick on GOB and Tony Wonder.

I also liked how the season ended, with George Michael punching Michael in the face. It was a tone shift for the show, but not an undeserved one. Over the course of the season, I thought they did a decent job turning Michael into more of a heel. At the beginning of the season, I kind of didn’t like that they were doing it, but I thought it paid off in the end. With George Sr. as more of a comic figure now, you kind of had to make someone be an antagonist, and it made more sense to have it be Michael as opposed to GOB.

Random thoughts here and there:

- As noted in this wonderful article from Buzzfeed, what the hell happened to Portia’s face? I don’t say this to be mean – I mean, Steve Holt also got fat. But Portia’s face in the third episode just looked so drastically different that it was distracting. And THEN, once you got used to it, she went back to “normal” by the time she got her short haircut!

I can’t explain it. The obvious answers seem to be “bad makeup” or “bad botox,” with maybe the crew realizing that she looked a mess after shooting a couple of her scenes. Or maybe they had a big break between that episode and some of the other ones they shot. Whatever the explanation, it was severely distracting at times. (In contrast though, Judy Greer, you keep doing what you do, girl.)

- Keeping her streak alive of great performances in non-Saturday Night Live roles, I loved Kristen Wiig as a young(er) Lucille Bluth. Seth Rogen as George Sr. was a little pitchy to me, but Wiig had the perfect look and tone for Younger Lucille. Thankfully, I did keep away from spoilers on the fourth season, so it was a pleasant surprise for me to see her in that role. (Also, I’m fully onboard for the spinoff show with her and Rogen in five years, if and when their acting careers fall to launch.)

Also good in their guest roles were Isla Fischer as Rebel Alley, Ron Howard as an aloof version of himself, Ben Stiller as Tony Wonder, Ed Helms as the sleazy real estate agent, Maria Bamford as Tobias’ new lover, and Tommy Tune as Lucille 2’s brother. Just OK were Carl Weathers and the dude playing Lindsay’s new guy for that hot minute or so he’s on the show. Also, looping back to Ron Howard, I was

surprised he didn’t use one of his actual daughters to play Rebel Alley, given the past stunt casting on the show with Justine Bateman. (And also also, she, Franklin and J. Walter Weathermen were the most noticeable absences to me.)

- The Buster-focused episode was the best overall of the season to me. I kind of wish it had been earlier in the season, but I understand why it wasn’t. It definitely had a lot of setup in it, mostly involving the Fake Herman Cain campaign of Terry Crews. (That was definitely the most “dated” element of season four – It feels like Cain ran a million years ago. I feel like an AD-original politician probably would have been more amusing.)

So, anyway. After watching season four, and thinking about it for a few days, I’m on board for a season five – I want to see where they go with the Michael and George Michael relationship, and to a lesser extent, how Lindsay will screw up in a campaign race with Sally Sitwell. While I don’t think the fourth season is as re-watchable as the previous three, it was still among the better sitcoms I watched this year.

Mailbag: Wiig, Baggage and Other Crap

So, I've gotten some questions and comments while I've been gone. Doing my best to sum them up…

Q: Hey, how come you hate Kristen Wiig so much?

A: The weird thing is that I kind of don't as much anymore. Since I wrote about wanting to get her fired from Saturday Night Live, they have been using her in radically less skits. (Obviously, the writers and producers over there are big time fans of Stephen On Stuff.)

I still find a lot of her characters, like the neurotic K-Mart clerk and the neurotic Lawrence Whelk Show lady and the neurotic every character in every sketch lady, very annoying. However, when they have her play an actual human being, she's pretty decent. (Still, they need to use Jay Pharaoh more.)

An odd offshoot of all of this is that Wiig apparently has a huge following with younger girls. I got at least two e-mails from angry 14-year-olds, who proclaimed that Wiig is God's gift to comedy. The reference I was making to Lorne Michaels and The Beatles kind of went completely over their heads.

Q: When is The Baggage Game coming back? Do you still watch?

A: I had to put my viewing on hold for a bit, just because I wasn't blogging at all, and my DVR access was a bit limited. However, I do still watch Baggage, and I've started to queue up some episodes for review. I'll probably resume this coming week.

It's weird to me how much pull this show has, and I'm glad that they're still doing new episodes. Springer is just so god damn awesome on it. Also, it seems like my blog is the definitive source for it, oddly enough. From the Model Mayhem board, it seems like they had an encounter with one of the dudes, and a couple other people have found some older entries.

Q: What the heck do you do each day now anyway?

A: In case you missed the earlier entries, or you just managed to find this one, I'm currently an editor and reporter for Narragansett Patch (hence the widget on the side). The job does keep me pretty busy writing, which is why my output on here was so diminished. However, I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things.

When I'm not writing, I enjoy a wide variety of activities. Lately, this has mostly consisted of taking care of my 17-year-old cat, playing PS3, sleeping and kickball. Yes, kickball. Which is where I'm headed to now as I write this, nine hours before it posts, so see ya.

An Ongoing Struggle of Dedication

The weird thing about my blog is that the readership numbers (allegedly) continue to grow even as I don't blog as much. A less vain writer would take this as an indictment of his writing ability, but after running my own news site for (almost) a year, I realize that there is a lot of value in an extensive back catalog. (In a true sign of the height of my own vanity, I often find myself clicking through past entries I've done, thanks to the “You Might Like...” prompting at the bottom of each of my entries.)

Anyway. My own effort on this has wavered, obviously. I've almost restarted about five times in the ensuing, unplanned five month vacation of mine from writing. In fact, it's bizarre to look back at my last entry to realize that the last time I wrote was the first week I got my cat, which has now been with me for three months. (As a status update on the cat, he really enjoys my new apartment much more, since the windows are much lower to the ground and he can perch there. He's still really, really old.)

At least for now, there should be posts queued up for these next two weeks – another one on Thursday, and Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week. Beyond that, I'll have to see. If I continue writing, it will probably be on more evergreen topics, since the demands of work often don't leave me with time to do posts on the fly. I'm still a big fan of my workplace and what not, but it does take a full 40 to 50 hours a week, as compared to past journalism jobs, where I did get a bit more time to coast. (On the plus side, there are few things more joyous to me than being able to set my own hours.)

Addressing some of the comments that piled up in my absence: People are really quite into Kristen Wiig. I haven't seen Bridesmaids, but I kind of want to – it looks funny. However, to refine my earlier arguments on Wiig, it's not that I don't think she's funny. I just think she's way, way overused on Saturday Night Live. It's a habit Lorne Michaels can lapse into at times; some of the Jimmy Fallon years, he is in every single sketch too. But now that he has his own show and the humor isn't as forced, I've come to enjoy him much more. I imagine Wiig will be the same thing – I'll probably like her “Best Of” DVD, and whatever future endeavors she's into.

A ho-hum Saturday Night Live with the gorgeous Emma Stone

I didn't realize that Emma Stone was so tall, and had such great legs, until last night's Saturday Night Live. Also, there was a pretty funny sexual education skit in the final 30 minutes - It was much, much better than the lame ones with Kenan Thompson.

And hey, now that I think about it, there were several good moments in Weekend Update. It's silly, but I like the Stefon character. Furkels was great, and made me spit-take a bit. And Kenan was really good as that wacky "The rent is too damn high!" character. And the weird French dancing skit was something they would have done on an old school Saturday Night Live, and very effective.

As usual, anything Kristen Wiig was in made me recoil. And the opening monologue? I bet while Jay Pharoah was watching in the background, he was thinking, "Why does this Fred mother effer get to Obama?" That was long, drawn-out and not funny. Same thing goes with everything Wiig was featured prominently in. Another funny skit, the "my brother is awesome!" show, made that clear to me. Just start putting the new girls in every skit, Lorne Michaels.


Note: Sorry for the brevity of this entry, but I'm doing this, that and the other thing tonight - Packing for a two-day trip to New York, preparing for the initial high school newspaper edition of the year, planning for my site launch on November 1... Being an adult is tough work.

Denzel (and Jay Pharoah) make SNL tolerable

My buddy Tom and others have suggested a way to save Saturday Night Live that I'll sign off on - Just have Jay Pharoah in every skit. A blog at The Wall Street Journal is singing his praises (eerie fact: It's written by Christopher John Farley), and I will second them. He's only been in three skits so far, but he's been great in all of them. Much like when Eddie Murphy joined the show in 1980 and put it on his back, I think Pharoah should do the same with Andy Samburg.

The best skit this past Saturday featured Pharoah as a pitch-perfect Denzel Washington. He was immersing himself in his role as a worker at a customer service desk, and angryly cajoling a customer (a disappointing-as-host Jane Lynch) for trying to return a BLACK hand bag. "Is there something wrong with the color of this bag?" He completely nailed Denzel, and the clip is in the WSJ article linked above.

Unfortunately though, the rest of the show felt lackluster, as you can probably guess from my comment about Lynch. They showed glimpses of promise, like when they had a pretty funny skit about Glee...

... Only for the whole thing to be derailed with the inclusion of Gillie, the horrible character played by Kristen Wiig that almost nobody likes. (Sorry Picosita. And also, my 10-member anti-Wiig Facebook group can still be joined here!)

The skit was going along fine, not hilarious but still funny, until she came on my screen. I instantly cringed and found something else to busy myself for the next couple minutes. Once she made an appearance, the only other funny part of the skit was the introduction of gay Kurt's dad.

I don't understand the thinking on involving Gillie at all. By itself, Glee is incredibly easy to mock, and they were doing a good job of that. You simply don't need to include a tired Kristen Wiig character. Is it in her contract that she has to be in 10 skits per week? Does she give head writer Seth Meyers a handy each time she makes an appearance?

Anyway. Outside of that horrible-ness, there was a funny bit or two. The FB application for mom-proofing your profile was pretty good, even if it didn't make logical sense, since there are plenty of privacy tools already to keep people out of your FB. I was also a big fan of the New Boyfriend Show, featuring Samburg as a kid who interviews his mom's boyfriends in the morning... and who gleefully tells today's guest that he's on the 100th episode.

Saturday Night Live - Now more average!

Last night's Saturday Night Live was better than the season opener, which is somewhat surprising, given the differences in cast. Yeah, Bryan Cranston is an upgrade on Amy Poheler, but there weren't nearly as many celebrity cameos.

But in contrast to the opener, the ones they did have were used in one of my favorite skits, "What Up With That?" My friend Tom noted that it's a bad sign when it's on early in the show, which turned out to be true, but the actual skit with Morgan Freeman, Ernest Borgnine and Lindsay Buckingham was as awesome as usual to me. (p.s. Morgan, drop the earring. It looks weird.)

Unfortunately, the rest of the show was just average, outside of the opening with Andy Samberg as the departing Rahm Emanuel. Also, WUWT was the only skit to use Jay Pharoah, who seems like he had breakout potential. After his awesome Will Smith impression in the first week, how can you not use him more, Lorne Michaels? Heck, he didn't even get to do Obama, even though Fred Armisen's version really, really sucks.

Part of the reason why the rest of the show was average, though, and not bad, was because Lorne obviously got my memo from last week. Wiig was in less skits this week, which helped the overall quality. What did suck was that she was the "sexy girl" in a skit that also had Abby Elliott, which makes absolutely no sense. Oh, and also, in this skit she was gagging, burping and farting, among other fun stuff. Lovely.

So, with that in mind, there is still time to join my anti-Kristen Wiig group on Facebook! Nine people strong against her, woohoo!

Dear Lorne Michaels, Kristen Wiig sucks.

After watching the premiere of Saturday Night Live yesterday, I've decided that something has to be done about Kristen Wiig.

Yes, she can be funny sometimes. However, as SNL is currently constituted, this seldom happens. I liked her in the opening sketch as Delware politician Christine O'Donnell. From there, it was a repeat of past shows, as she was unfunny in most of her skits playing the same neurotic, high-pitched character she plays in every sketch. On the whole, I agree with the review of the show by New York Magazine:

[Host Amy] Poehler ably carried the show, of course. Mostly, it was far from her best SNL work, and the return of all those former, funny cast members just made us miss better SNL line-ups, and it almost seemed a little desperate on NBC’s part.

Well said. Some of my friends bring up the point that Wiig is the one woman they can trust in the cast to give a decent performance, as if this is a good excuse. But how is anyone else in the cast going to develop if you keep giving the airtime to Wiig, Fred Armisen, etc.? Heck, Andy Samburg is the most popular cast member, and he was barely in anything last night.

Therefore, I proposed this deal to Lorne Michaels on Facebook:

Dear Lorne Michaels,

I have no idea why you feel a compulsive need to put Kristen Wiig in seemingly EVERY Saturday Night Live skit, but honestly, it needs to stop. Maybe you think it's awesome that she plays the same neurotic character with the silly voice in every sketch, but I'm not a fan.

In April of 1976, Lorne, you offered The Beatles $3,000 to appear on the show. Well, I'm doing the same for you - If you fire Kristen Wiig, I'll write you a check for $3,000. If this sweetens the pot for you, my checks have Sesame Street characters on them, and you can pick which one you like the best.

Anyway, let me know what you think, Lorne. (Can I call you Lorne? I realize I've already done it a couple times in this message.) I'm eagerly awaiting your response.

Sincerely,
Steve

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The group is open to the public, and you can look at it and join the crusade by clicking here. I don't think it'll actually work, but hey, it sure would be sweet if it did.

Saturday Night Live goes out like a punk

Oh sigh. Saturday Night Live, even with Alec Baldwin hosting, you sure did stink this weekend. What the hell happened? Just last week, your Betty White episode was pretty swell. It wasn't perfect, but for this season, it was pretty damn good.

But Saturday's episode? What a god damn train wreck. By my count, there were three funny moments - Meyers' jokes during Weekend Update, the appearance of Stefan in Update, and Baldwin as an abusive swim coach. None of these were original features, and only one used the considerable talents of Baldwin, who seemed on autopilot the majority of the night.

Dear Saturday Night Live, PLEASE stop making Kristen Wiig play some awkward, horrible shrew in every god damn sketch. If you don't have faith in Jenny Slate or Abby Elliott to do anything, then please, just do all-male sketches or something. Heck, you haven't even done "What's up with that?" lately, which is normally a guaranteed way to kill six to eight minutes.

Grade: D