Out of the handful of original series and show continuations Netflix has offered prior to “BoJack,” only the fourth season of “Arrested Development” has made the streaming service’s binge-watching platform vital to experiencing the show as a whole. When Mitchell Hurwitz resurrected the beloved FOX comedy on Netflix, fans and critics were vastly divided on the results, mainly because what they got was an entirely different show with a structure tailored for the Netflix platform. The first half of season four is a laborious experience at times given the slow moving setup and the many visual gags and callbacks being thrown up in the air, but its structural importance becomes intelligently clear once the later episodes reach up and twist every storyline into each other. Season 4 is essentially a meticulously constructed single episode split into 15 parts, one that must be binged to achieve its maximum comedic effect.
Watch “Arrested Development” Season 4 week-to-week and most viewers will check out within the first month as the show seemingly goes nowhere. But binge a couple episodes at time and the cyclone of inside jokes and interconnected plots spin faster and faster until nearly every story, every character and every gag has a howling comic payoff. What Hurtwitz’s Season 4 master plan gives way to is a comedy constructed specifically for the Netflix digital age. The laughs are inherently built into the binge-watching process, and the binge-watching process gives way to a storm of uproarious laughs.
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