The
new Fox sitcom Arrested Development, which airs
Sunday nights at 9:30pm, is
one of the funniest, most unique sitcoms we've seen on U.S. TV
in years, and also one of the few to include an actress who is
openly (or at least, semi-openly) involved in a lesbian relationship:
former Ally McBeal regular Portia
de Rossi.
The
sitcom, which is produced by Ron Howard and shot in reality-TV
style, stars Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth, the only responsible
person in a dysfunctional family that includes Michael Cera as
his tense thirteen-year-old son George Michael; Will Arnett as
his resentful older brother George Oscar Bluth (nicknamed Gob,
pronounced like Jobe); Tony Hale as his flaky younger brother
Buster; Jeffrey Tambor as his tax-evading father George; Jessica
Walter as his alcoholic mother Lucille; Portia de Rossi as his
shopaholic twin sister Lindsay; David Cross as Lindsay's doctor-turned-wannabe-actor
husband Tobias; and Alia Shawkat as Lindsay and Tobias' fourteen-year-old
daughter Maeby who likes to flirt with her cousin George Michael
just to freak her parents out.
In
the first episode, which aired on November 2nd, George Sr. was
arrested for tax evasion and incarcerated, leaving Michael to
run the family business. Most of the episodes revolve around the
family's interpersonal relationships and Michael's battles with
his family to try and keep the business afloat--no easy task when
the family members routinely deceive, avoid, and insult each other,
and just generally try to push each other's buttons as often as
possible.
The
genius of Arrested Development is that it's
both unpredictable and understated, a thinking-person's
sitcom that is blessedly free of the laugh track that overpowers
most sitcoms.
"Is
there a carbon monoxide leak in this house?" Michael asks
exasperatedly in the second episode when he finds most of his
family members lying around the living room doing nothing in the
middle of a weekday afternoon. Later, when Michael protests his
mother's request that he give his older brother a job in the company,
Lucille snaps "Don't take that tone with me. He's my son...and
I want you to make him stop calling me."
In the same episode, Tobias goes to audition for commercial for
a shopping fire-sale and Lindsay goes along in order to "appear
supportive." Tobias misinterprets "fire-sale" to
be an actual fire, so his audition consists of him yelling "Oh,
the burning! Evacuate all the schoolchildren!" and writhing
on the floor crooning "Amazing Grace." When the part
unexpectedly goes to Lindsay instead, she celebrates by spending
all the money she was going to get for the commercial, then oversleeping
and missing the filming altogether.
The
acting is superb across the board, and Bateman, who is
perhaps best known for his roles in the 80's sitcoms Silver
Spoons, Valerie, and The Hogan Family,
is perfect as the lead. Arrested Development is worth
watching for his facial expressions alone, which do more to convey
his character's disbelief at his family's craziness than any of
his lines.
De
Rossi, who played frosty attorney Nelle on Ally
McBeal for four seasons, is also excellent as a lazy,
self-involved wife and mother who gets a kick out of watching
her husband annoy her family. De Rossi's deadpan comic delivery
and her character's intelligent but superficial personality contrast
well with Bateman's character.
Besides
Lily Tomlin on The West Wing, there are almost
no other TV actresses openly involved in a lesbian relationship,
primarily because there is little evidence so far that you can
actually come out as an actress and still have a successful television
career. Ellen Degeneres learned this the hard way when she and
her sitcom character came out in 1997 and she found it almost
impossible to get work afterwards, one of the reasons she cited
for why she later created her own talk
show.
Although
de Rossi has not officially come out as lesbian or bisexual, she
is not hiding her relationship with girlfriend Francesca Gregorini,
either. Her role on Arrested Development contributes
to lesbian visibility on TV, even if it's only indirectly, and
starts to chip away at the fear around coming out as a lesbian
in Hollywood--one more
reason it would be great to see Arrested Development
succeed.
Unfortunately, the show's understated humor means
you have to actually pay attention when you watch it, which may
be too much to ask of most Americans, who are used to their sitcom
humor being served up on a silver platter.
Although
critical reviews of Arrested Development have been overwhelmingly
positive, ratings so far haven't been so fabulous: the show's
debut earned decent ratings, but ratings for the second episode
were poor; if ratings don't improve soon, this show could quickly
go the way of the recently canceled Skin and Coupling.
This
would be a loss not only for U.S. TV viewers in general, but for
lesbian and bisexual viewers in particular.
