By Chris Ryall
August 19, 2003
Go with me on this -- you're going to have a hard time believing it, but here it is -- Jason Bateman is starring in the best new sitcom I've seen so far for the Fall 2003 TV season.
That's right -- Teen Wolf, Too himself, a guy who was the Eric Roberts of his day. And since his day, in the mid-`80s, Jason Bateman has hardly been seen (or missed). And yet...here he is, perfectly suited for this Fox comedy that hits more funny notes than any new sitcom since maybe the first season of MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE. In fact, this show feels a lot like that one -- there's an underlying sweetness to it but you'll be hard-pressed to find it under the messed-up family to which Bateman's character belongs.
Bateman plays Michael Bluth, one of four Bluth kids born to Lucille and George Bluth (Jessica Walter and the always-welcome Jeffrey "Hey, now" Tambor). Michael's the normal one, see, so of course he's the put-upon head of our show.
George Bluth has his own home development business, and he's retiring soon. His party will be on a yacht in Newport Harbor in Orange County, CA (and unlike another Fox show, bits of this are actually filmed in the O.C.). It's there that George will name a successor to the company. Michael, the ever-diligent employee, is sure that he's going to be handed the company. He's worked hard and is a widower, raising his 13-year-old son George Michael Bluth (Michael Cera, not annoying at all like most young teens on sitcoms). Michael is ready to be offered the company and then decline, planning instead to take his kid to Arizona to raise him properly.
Other potential candidates for the business, although all of these people know they have no real business running things, are: Lucille, of course, George's free-spending wife who allows all her kids (except for Michael, who doesn't ask) to bill any and all personal expenses to the company while she does the same. Michael's older brother is George "Gob" (Will Arnett), a career magician. There's also younger brother Buster (Tony Hale), a career grad student who knows a lot but is prone to panic attacks before he can show what he knows. And then there's Michael's twin sister Lindsay Funke. Lindsay is played by Portia de Rossi, who has a much brighter twinkle in her eye here than she did on ALLY. Lindsay is married to a hapless doctor (played by David Cross, who can do hapless, and just about anything else he wants, perfectly). These two have a daughter, "Maeby," who decides making out with her cousin, Michael's son, is a good way to shock her parents. Little does she know...
At the retirement party, just after George names someone other than Michael to run the business, a police boat pulls up and George is arrested for the family's faulty accounting practices. I really hope George, who decides he likes jail, is a big part of this show--any time Tambor shows up, even in dreck like THE GRINCH, he makes the material better.
Not that the material here is lacking without him -- most of the humor comes from the characters themselves, but it's not cheap or slapstick. And with a cast that includes David Cross, Jeff Tambor and Portia, you know you're getting folks who know how to deliver a line. And Bateman, as the "straight man" to this skewed family, does a fine job, too.
The family realizes they need Michael, the only Bluth with a good head on his shoulders, to keep the business (and thus their lifestyles) going, so he decides to stick around, even though he'd earlier sworn off his family forever. As George, later wearing OZ-like prison headwear, tells him, "Family comes first." ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is an Imagine TV production (the same people who brought us the aforementioned and ever-hated GRINCH). The show is narrated by omniscient narrator in a touch that seems inspired by the Coen Brothers, but it works, unlike a lot of V.O. in shows. I'm not sure if it will continue (the voice sounded like Ron Howard, the show's creator/producer, but I'm not sure), but it sets up the pilot nicely. Pretty much top to bottom, this show just worked for me -- it's funny, arch, features some great comedic performances and solid writing...it's exactly the kind of show a pilot should be--enticing and entertaining, making me definitely want to see more. And I can't remember the last time I said that about a sitcom.
Fox's ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT airs this Fall on Sunday nights at 9:30 PM.
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