"There's always money in the banana stand."

My goodness, another Must See TV Thursday?  This week I have a confession to make.  I've succumbed to the buzz and tried "Arrested Development".  I started with the first episode of the first season.  Sorry, Goose, WE started with the first episode of the first season.

If you've missed they hype, here's the logline version (I'm trying to stay in practice): A satirical comedy is  canceled after its third season causing great moaning and gnashing of teeth until one fan takes over an online movie streaming empire and creates a fourth season.

A lot of what I've read about the new season focuses on how Netflix has ruined the show.  Hogwash, I say.  There was no fourth season before Netflix and anyone who knows anything about math knows that you can't ruin nothing.  I think those fans let expectation get the better of them and then took advantage of high bandwidth to vent.  How often, really, is the fourth season of any show better than the first couple of seasons?

The show itself, in the four (five?) episodes I've watched so far, is right up my humor alley.  My eldest son really likes it too.  My wife has reserved judgment, as she often wisely does (never fear, she'll come around), saying that it's alright but it's not the Office.  Fair enough, but - and meaning absolutely no slight to my very insightful bride,

 

of course it's not the office - let's compare engines for a moment.  The office is about one totally messed up person putting a group of fairly normal (each has just one quirk) people into awkward situations they need to get out of.  Arrested Development has a group of people messing things up and a single fairly normal person trying to fix everything.  The style of the filming and writing, however, is identical.  The setting is different, the characters are completely different - at least this early on - but the shows are very much related in my mind.

I don't know exactly where it's going, can't tell you precisely what it's about, but it makes me LOL out loud and nobody has made me cringe quite the way the world's greatest boss, Michael Scott, always did.  I missed it ten years ago, but it's aged well and can hold its own against the current crop.