The Long-Awaited ‘Arrested Development’ S4 Remix Hits Netflix On Friday

Good news, sports fans! Arrested Development has suddenly sprung back to life and is slinging out gifts unto you all this week. Warm up the cornballer, this is not a drill.

The show’s game-changing fourth season – the one that was virtually responsible for popularising the binge-watching format that’s now the standard for most Netflix releases – took on a decidedly different version of storytelling to the tight 22-minute episodes the show ran with during its time on network TV.

Each episode focused on a different character, all moving towards one central event in a Rashomon-style storytelling device.

However since it was released (in 2013!!!) creator Mitch Hurwitz has long been promising a remixed version of the series that cuts all the stories together in more traditional A/B/C plot structures, extending the series out to 22 episodes in a bid to both a) see if the stories still work when funnelled through a more usual storytelling setup, and b) prepare the season for possible syndication down the line.

That long wait is finally over, as Hurwitz not only confirmed that the remixed season was done, but that it would also be arriving this Friday (THIS FRIDAY) just in time to celebrate Cinco de Cuatro.

Hurwitz confirmed the re-release in a lengthy letter on Twitter, that also dropped a big hint that the much vaunted Season 5 will be arriving much sooner than most people might be anticipating.

Hi. This is Mitch Hurwitz, creator of the television show Arrested Development, and if you’re just like me… well, then you already know that – because you’re the one typing this “Message to Fans of Arrested Development.”

Anyway, I’m writing you – as I probably already know – with TWO exciting updates about Netflix and the series. The first is that a new fifth season of Arrested Development will be coming back to Netflix soon. Like real soon. Like, if you knew when, you would not be wrong to be thinking “why are we all just hearing this now?” Well, I don’t mean to be defensive, but I don’t know why everyone’s suddenly mad at me.

The point is, the date of that premiere on Netflix will be announced shortly and don’t forget there’s still ONE MORE exciting update to get to, so let’s just try to keep this positive.

And here it comes:

And here it is. This Friday, on a premature holiday the Bluth family know as “Cinco do Cuatro” Netflix will be releasing a remix of season 4 of Arrested Development that I recently put together.

The original season four of of Arrested Development on Netflix, as some of you know, experimented with a Rashomon-style of storytelling – with each episode dedicated to the adventure of one member of the Bluth family.

The goal was that by the end of the season, a unified story of cause and effect would emerge for the viewer – full of surprises about how the Bluths were responsible for most of the misery they had endured. In some ways to be an experience for that viewer, perhaps, akin to eating some toast, then some bacon – maybe a sliced tomato followed by some turkey and realising “Hey, I think I just had a BLT.”

But in between season 4 and this upcoming season 5 I had time to take that Rashomon-type story and recut it – shuffling the content from 15 individualised stories into 22 interwoven stories the length of the original series – as an experiment to find out, well… I guess “if I could make more money.” I mean, who am I kidding, I want this thing to syndicate eventually.

But I also pursued it as a comedic experiment to see if new jokes and a new perspective would emerge from a remix that features all the Bluths in every episode, and where the simultaneity of the story plays out chronologically. And I’m really excited about the final result. It’s funny in a whole new way, and I believe it creates a really entertaining and hilarious new experience for the “viewer.” And I only call you that because I don’t know how to pronounce your last name.

It’s called Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences, it’ll be streaming on Friday May 4th. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recutting it (hint: that should be easy for you to because recutting it wasn’t actually that enjoyable).

I have NO MORE exciting updates.

Got all that? Sweet.

The TL;DR version of it is that the recut release – entitled Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences – arrives this coming Friday.

Clear your weekend schedule, mates. You’ve got some blueing to do.

Well, maybe not that much.

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