It's the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, including their much-loved TV series. But then, eventually, much to everyone's delighted surprise, they got it back again. You'll know by now that fifteen new episodes of Arrested Development are on their way to Netflix, and to celebrate, there's a nifty new trio of EW covers, showcasing the return of Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Will Arnett, David Cross, Alia Shawkat, Portia de Rossi, Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter. Full house! Or rather, by the looks of it, full plane. Wonder where they're going...
"They're ten years older than when we met them, so that means they're emotionally more like two years older," says series creator Mitchell Hurwitz. "Amazing things happen when one goes from being emotionally 12 years old to emotionally being 14 years old. This year is about the enduring entanglements of family,"
Or perhaps you prefer Arnett's version of what's about to unfold: "It’s the story of shame, cunning, thievery, dishonor, backstabbing, deceit, bold-faced lying, one-upmanship, psychological torture, lust, financial ruin, and magic, all supported by a very broad beam of dysfunctional love." Let's go with that.
The big news this time - apart from the show's very existence, obviously - is that, with all fifteen episodes hitting Netflix at the same time, the storytelling possibilities have been much changed from the previous, normal, once-a-week format.
"Mitch started to get his arms around how all the action could happen simultaneously," says Bateman. "There was an ability to stop one episode, start another, and have all this crossover and braided plotting... It became clear that he was going to try to accomplish something incredibly ambitious, the kind of escalation that the audience would expect from him.”
The all-new Arrested Development arrives for your streaming pleasure on May 26. There's still no green light for that much-talked-about movie, but fingers crossed, eh?
Update: Three new posters - okay, one new poster with three different taglines - have arrived, and you can take a look at them/it below.
{Arrested Development New Posters}