"Arrested Development": Third Season’s a Charm

Despite being heaped with critical praise and winning multiple Emmy awards, FOX had slated Arrested Development for cancellation last season. True to snarky form, the writers incorporated the cancellation rumors into the plotline. Adam Sternbergh wrote in New York Magazine (April 2005) “Its tenuous status has become an explicit metajoke on the show. When Fox recently cut the show’s season from 22 episodes to 18, the writers had Michael Bluth complain that a construction contract for his company had been cut from 22 houses to, yes, 18. (His father grouses, ‘I heard about the reduced order. Those bastards!’)”

The ever-present threat of cancellation is due in part to the fact that the show is not an easy sell. There’s no single comedic situation with which you could easily describe it. Almost a mockumentary, the irreverent Arrested Development skewers white-collar crime, conservative Christianity, actors, magicians, and the recovery movement.

Every institution deemed essential to American life is up for grabs. Here's a few examples:

On liberal, letter grade-free, education:
LINDSAY: (to Maeby) Okay, look. I know you got a “crocodile” in spelling, but this has gone too far!

On motherhood:
LUCILLE: I don't have the milk of mother's kindness in me anymore.
MICHAEL: Yeah. That udder's been dry for a while though, hasn't it?

On alcohol:
LUCILLE: I'll be in the hospital bar.
MICHAEL: Uhh, you know, there isn't a hospital bar, mother.
LUCILLE: Well, this is why people hate hospitals.

On Christianity:
MAEBE: Do you guys know where I could get one of those gold T-shaped pendants?
MICHAEL: That's a cross.
MAEBE: Across from where?

On work:
MICHAEL: (to his family) I'm moving to Phoenix. I got a job.
[There is an awkward silence]
MICHAEL: Something you apply for and they pay you to... Never mind, I don't want to ruin the surprise.

On sex:
MICHAEL: My mom is very stressed out, and she needs something I can't give her, um... maybe a little "afternoon delight".
NARRATOR: Uncle Oscar thought that Michael was referring to a particular brand of cannabis named Afternoon Deelite, a strain famous for slowing behavior.
OSCAR: Well sure, my question is, which way do I try to get it in her?
MICHAEL: I don't need any details.
OSCAR: Maybe I'll put it in her brownie.
MICHAEL: Hey!

On family:
MICHAEL: What have we always said is the most important thing?
GEORGE MICHAEL: Breakfast
MICHAEL: Family
GEORGE MICHAEL: Oh, right. Family. I thought you meant of the things you eat