Arrested Development

my rating:

Sunday nights are still (again?) the best night for sitcoms on TV, now that Fox has finally started its 2003-04 season. OK, Futurama is unjustly gone, last year's late-season replacement Oliver Beene (not outstanding, but entertaining) is missing so far for no apparent reason, and I've never understood the appeal of King of the Hill. But the 37th season of The Simpsons is still fresher than the 1st season of Run of the House, Malcolm in the Middle still offers the most three-dimensional screwball characters around and is mercifully not fixating on the new baby, and now Arrested Development has arrived with the kind of punch-line-free humor that television in 2003 is sadly lacking.

Instead of gags that rely on a laugh track to point out when someone has said or done something funny, AD goes for a more "mockumetary" feel, deriving its humor from the oddball characters who make up the extended Bluth family and the absurdity of the situations. Michael (Jason Bateman), the one relatively sane and intelligent adult son, is now herding his family of loopy cats following the white-collar-crime arrest of his father George, the patriarch of the family business.

My personal favorite sub-situation (like a subplot, but the show isn't really about "plots") revolves around Michael's virginal teenage son George Michael, who - to his terror and fascination - finds himself sharing a bedroom with his hot female cousin Maeby. Adolescent sexual double entendres have never been this funny.

Some of the humor falls a little flat, or wears out its novelty, such as the stilted and shallow over-acting of the brother who has no talent for his chosen profession. But it at least keeps the grin going, enough to enjoy an intellectually satisfying chuckle when the next bit actually works.