Thanks in large part to all of those “Bring back Arrested Development” petitions on the web that people kept signing — pfft! HA! Like those can influence anyone — Netflix saw fit to bring back Arrested Development as a ten-episode pseudo season exclusive to their subscribers. Show creator Mitch Hurwitz spoke at a press junket recently, where he revealed a little more about how this will all play out: first, the entire season will be up all at once (sometime next year), rather than one episode per week. Second, you can expect to see some of your favorite recurring characters. Vulture reports:
• Bob Loblaw will return. “We will bring him back,” Hurwitz told Vulture when we asked a question from the studio audience. (Per Netflix’s insistence, Hurwitz wasn’t doing one-on-one chats). “It’s kind of a one-joke thing. But if you guys don’t mind bringing it back, we’ll give it to you.” (For the record, the audience reacted with strong applause to the idea of a Loblaw appearance in season four).
• Sarandos dropped some data on how well Mad Men does on Netflix, saying 3.5 million subscribers had watched the fourth season of the show since it went up on the service, and that 800,000 viewers watched all three seasons. What’s more, this Monday, the most-streamed episode of Mad Men was actually the show’s pilot, perhaps indicating some folks have decided to start catching up on the series. “We believe we found an untapped audience of the show,” he said, taking partial credit for Mad Men‘s 20 percent ratings jump at the start of the current season.
• Hurwitz mildly embarrassed Shawkat by reminding her that Cera was her first-ever kiss. “I’ve kissed a lot of people since then,” Shawkat jokingly shot back.
Not that I didn’t love Bob Loblaw, but if we’re being completely honest here, Scott Baio is kind of a total pill. I just feel like there are a few other characters that should come back, like STEVE HOLT! You know you totally just thrusted your arms into the air just reading that. Either that or Maggie Lizer, but that’s mostly because I love Julia Louis Dreyfuss, and I thought the blind dog was super cute.
