coles_notes

Written and directed by John Morton we have BBC series Twenty Twelve, spoofing the preparation for the London Olympic games in that year. All shot mockumentary style we follow Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville), Head of Deliverance of the Olympic Deliverance Commission, his team as they count down 1000 days to opening ceremony, and of course all the fiascos and hilarities that entails. The format is a fairly standard The Office type, with talking heads, cringe, and general incompetency, but its done quite well, and the writing and performances are genuinely great. Also starring Olivia Colman as Ian's assistant, as well as a list of familiar BBC comedic faces, the show is short and sweet at only two 6-episode seasons, with its airing of course having an actual deadline as the real-life games came to fruition. While the show is quite literally dated in its references, much of the humour doesn't derive from pop culture at the time, so the jokes all hold up, even now. The series would also eventually lead to a personal favourite and pseudo-sequel W1A, with many recurring cast and characters. If you've seen W1A and liked it certainly check this one out, and if you like this type of series generally, I'd recommend.

Created by Michael Volpe and Gerry Dee and starring the latter as lead Mr. D, inept substitute teacher at Xavier Academy, a k-12 private school. Mr. D himself of course has the spotlight in any given episode, with lots of cringe comedy, crossing the line to unlikeable, the idea being he's not a great guy, and is often the butt of the joke. His character is something some may love, but for me became considerably more annoying, almost obnoxious over its long 8 season run. With no major growth, and many subplots feeling a bit like Gerry Dee wish fulfilment, I didn't like how often he got rewarded for being a fool, although did get a laugh at a few of the group's antics. A fairly small cast of characters, the show sticks hard to an episodic format in that there's little overarching narrative or progression, some minor things change but generally the episodes could be watched in almost any order, making it quite binge-able. I didn't love it, but it was alright as something on in the background, so if you've seen some clips and liked them, perhaps give it a go.

Created by Mitchell Hurwitz originally for Fox and produced by (and starring) Ron Howard, we follow the dysfunctional family Bluths, with lead Michael (Jason Bateman) as he deals with the absurdist on-goings of his wealthy but now crumbling family as his father gets arrested. Airing over five somewhat disjoint seasons, the series was famously cancelled after its first three, only to be pre-picked up by Netflix for two* more seasons in 2013 and 2018. The first two seasons are perhaps some of the greatest television I've seen, certainly top tier sitcom. Because of its iconic place as a staple of television, not to mention its chaotic production, this review will be a bit of a longer one so apologies for non-brevity. If you haven't seen any of this show, just go start it. Its great. The wit of Mitchell Hurwitz's writing absolutely shines with the star studded cast I won't bother listing in its entirety. Jessica Walter as the shrewd Lucille was a treat and probably my favourite, and I loved Henry Winkler's performance as utterly terrible lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn. Unfortunately however, season three was a significant dip in quality, not so much in the production or acting, but its the writing which turns for the worst, probably the strongest element of the show previously, with many of the jokes just not being that funny. With some at Fox seemingly agreeing the show be cancelled, sitting for 8 years until Netflix re-picked it up. Airing originally as 15 ~30 minute episodes, the season four plot would take us over the course of the same ~week period through the perspectives of each of the Bluths, with interdependent plots and jokes, and some punchlines not paying off for multiple episodes. Something immensely clever if pulled off, the new style was seen as too far of a leap for most fans now coming to Netflix to see their favourite show revived, and apparently wasn't seen as something "binge-able" enough by the execs themselves. Seemingly cancelled again, it wouldn't be until 2018 that Netflix would take another stab at unarresting the shows development, with first a somewhat notorious re-edit of the previous season four, reorganizing the season into 22 shorter episodes at an attempt to more closely resemble the earlier seasons' episodes. Rebranded as "Arrested Development Remix: Fateful Consequences", it is now the "default" presentation of season four in Netflix, it will be what most are presented with who are re-binging the show, and with heavy voice over work required from Rod Howard just to re-stitch the stories together, I had originally thought someone had lost their mind when writing a tv show with how it was presented. The plots were near unintelligible, the jokes felt staggered and disjoint, it was honestly a frustrating watch. On finding you could watch the "original cut" of season four in Netflix's "episodes & more" option, I quickly did (although was a pain as didn't recognize as an official season so had to manually choose each episode) and it was well worth it, I would not recommend any watch the "remixed" season. Finally along with said remix we got season five, which would finish out the narrative began in season four. A show that started as near perfect, it really felt the writers were running out of ideas or a sense of direction around season three with its drop in quality, and as someone who again thinks the first two seasons are beautiful, I kinda understand Fox's decision. The original cut of season four by Netflix is quite good, however requires season five to finish as a plot, the latter of which is not great. All of this said, this show is still great, and pretending Fateful Consequences doesn't exist I would highly recommend, it's very funny.