Arrested Development: A Show Ahead of It's Time

Arrested Development is centered on Michael Bluth who's burdened with being the head of the household after his father's imprisoned after being found guilty of a white collar crime that he committed within his company. What's worse is that almost the rest of the family who has lost much of their financial wealth, are greedy and manipulative with incest-like streaks. Michael has a son of his own into whom he's trying to instill his values but his son feels equally pressured to join in with the rest of the family.

Many argue that it was ahead of its time due to its heavy use of double entendres, which are words or phrases that are open to more than one interpretations, at least one of which has a risqué innuendo meaning. In 2003, when Arrested Development first aired, sexuality and deviant sexuality were only just beginning to be heavily portrayed on TV shows and media.

the series was too overwhelming for the public for its time, which is probably one main contributing reason as to why it lasted for only three seasons. According to Michael Cera, another might have been that the network couldn't get their heads around how to go about selling something like that in a time when sexuality and the sort of familial dysfunction was barely beginning to be portrayed in the media.

It was aired again as a fourth season in 2012. It has since been named number two for Best Cult TV Show for the Past 25 Years in Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly has praised Arrested Development for its meshing jokes that no longer offend most of the general public audience. In 2013, the show's creator, Mitchell Hurwitz, announced that he was working on the long-awaited movie and would begin working on the fourth season after finishing the movie. Approximately fifteen of the fourth season's episodes were almost immediately released on Netflix.

What's more’s that Arrested Development portrays the sort of dysfunction, that, in many ways that we're seeing more of in the U.S. nationwide in real life. Work ethics seems to be going increasingly downhill, more parents are becoming helicopter parents and more teens than ever are on a rebellious path due to absent or poor parenting. Arrested Development seems to mirror that culture and then some. However, those lines also seem to be blurring between the financial classes.