After the break: A little David Cross goes a long way. Or sometimes none at all.
Arrested Development, "Pier Pressure"
First aired on Fox Sunday, January 11, 2004
"And that's why you don't teach lessons to your son." - J. Walter Weatherman
When the fourth season of “Arrested Development,” one of
TV’s all-time great comedies, began streaming exclusively through Netflix back
on May 26, there was a pretty common criticism of the new episodes shared by
people who disliked the season as a whole and even by the people who liked it
very much: the episodes were just too long. Yes, the show we had missed for
seven years was finally coming back to us, and our immediate reaction was that
it had given us too much.
For some comedies, hour-long episodes can be hit or miss.
“The Office,” for example, has a number of very good extended episodes (“Casino
Night,” “The Job,” “Goodbye, Toby”) and a number that are not so good. At the
height of NBC’s dire straits, the network considered permanently expanding “The
Office” to an hour-long show in the fall of 2007. Thankfully that didn’t end up
happening, considering the fourth season began with four hour-long episodes in
a row and only one of them (“Money”) is any good. But by and large, it’s an
example of a show where an extended running time can often be put to good use.
If used sparingly enough, most comedies can benefit from ten or twenty extra minutes
now and again.
.png){kind=spacer}
But “Arrested Development” isn’t just another show, or even
just another comedy. Since the show’s original cancellation, Fox has been
savaged by fans for a perceived mistreatment of the beloved series, but the
network loved the show and tried everything they could to save it: they aired
episodes after then-powerhouse “American Idol,” and after an entire season of
“The Simpsons”. When the show really started to slip in the second season, they
moved it to Mondays rather than just dumping it on Fridays, as they did that
year with the final seasons of “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The Bernie Mac
Show”. When “Arrested” went off the air, viewers bemoaned that the show was not
airing on a cable network like HBO or Showtime, whose “intelligent audiences”
would have “appreciated the show more”. Well sorry, but that’s bullshit. Airing
on a broadcast network was the best thing that ever happened to “Arrested
Development”.
The shortest of the fourth season’s episodes runs 28 minutes
long, the average length of an HBO half-hour like “Girls” or “Veep”. The
longest, an almost excruciating 37 minutes, or just a few minutes shy of your
average network drama. But back when the show’s original seasons aired on Fox,
the show had to come in at the length of a normal network comedy: 21 minutes.
21 minutes means a need for tighter editing and a faster
overall pace, and in no other episode of “Arrested Development” can you feel
the show embracing those needs as much as “Pier Pressure” does. The series as a
whole is known for its rapid-fire nature, but this episode in particular feels
like such a blur that by the time it’s over you can’t believe it’s only been 21
minutes. I actually kept checking the clock on my DVD player to mentally note
how fast things were happening and I couldn’t believe that I was only two
minutes, four minutes, eight minutes etc. into the episode and so much had
already happened.
There were two things I really took note of in “Pier
Pressure” that I think differentiate it from other episodes. Number one: in
relation to how fast it’s paced, another thing I was mentally taking note of
was an almost total lack of gaps between anything in this episode. Scenes
change with no warning, characters immediately shuffle in an out like you would
see actors do in the most well rehearsed play, and even within scenes there is
only the occasional organic pause in dialogue. Even Ron Howard’s narration
explaining the banana stand’s resemblance to a joint and its history as “pot
central” on the boardwalk overlaps by half a second with the actual beginning
of the infamous “Big Yellow Joint” novelty song. Not only are episodes of
“Arrested Development” much better when they have less time to work with,
episodes like this where you can feel really feel the show straining to fit
everything in actually end up being their best ones. And that’s despite the
fact that “Pier Pressure” is one of just a few installments that does not
feature an “On the next ‘Arrested Development’” tag at the end of the
episode (there’s just no time for it), and contains not even a mention of one
Dr. Tobias Funke.
Just ten or so episodes in, the dynamic cast and the
so-full-they’re-ready-to-burst scripts are already meshing together so well. Next
time you watch “Pier Pressure,” take note of the fact that the first few
minutes of the episode is basically just Michael checking in with all of his
family members (George Michael, Maeby, Lindsay, Gob, Lucille, Buster), spending
about 30 seconds with each character. We get to hear about the kids’ grades on
their latest test, Lindsay’s hippy parenting, Gob’s dilemma with the Hot Cops,
Lucille doctoring receipts to keep the SEC off her back, and Buster trying to
contend with Lucille 2’s worsening vertigo. All of that happens within the
first five minutes – in another comedy, that might be “enough” for a whole
episode.
.png){kind=spacer}
The second thing I noticed was that except for the total
lack of Tobias, “Pier Pressure” functions as a very good introduction to the
show for a new viewer. Both storylines nicely play off the show’s central theme
that while this family does love each other, it’s also kind of all bullshit.
Michael and his son are fundamentally good, nice people, but they’re nice to a
fault in that George Michael is willing to put himself at risk to buy pot for
his Uncle Buster and then lies about it to protect him. Gob plays a similar
role in that his willingness to help his nephew does not preclude potentially
introducing him to drugs, seeing nothing wrong with taking his money to get him
pot. George Sr. knows that it’s wrong to continue to warp his children by
scaring them with the one armed man, but just can’t help himself when he knows
how well his lessons work (I was wondering why J. Walter Weatherman/George
Sr.’s lessons didn’t make a cameo appearance in the new season until I learned
that Steve Ryan, the actor who played Weatherman, died in 2007).
.png){kind=spacer}
Even the slightly lighter Lindsay and Maeby storyline shows
Maeby learning just how awful her grandmother can be when she herself is
Lucille’s punching bad instead of her mother and bringing Lindsay the elephant
brooch that she has wanted her whole life. But in true Bluth fashion, Lindsay
and Maeby hug out their differences only for Lindsay to immediately suggest
they sell the brooch and use the money to go shopping. For Michael and George
Michael, the most important things in the world are family and breakfast (not
always in that order), but for the rest of the family, it’s all about material
things.
A spectacular episode that is a well-plotted laugh riot from start to finish - I can't recommend "Pier Pressure," or "Arrested Development," enough.
In two weeks: Good lord, they actually thought they could promote this show by rewriting lyrics to "In the Navy"
