Tuesday, May 28, 2013

It Was Arrested Development

Expect a full review at a later date, but for now: I'll give it a B.  Some great ideas, some things that never pay off (ostriches?), and in the end, it doesn't quite stick the landing.

Also, quick story: I finished watching episode 15, and realized that I could still hear it. I go out into the living room, and I see my roommates, watching it. "You know you skipped to the final one, right?" I said.
"We couldn't wait," they said.
It was an odd choice, given that I knew they had watched the show for the first time a few days earlier, and only seen about four episodes from the first three seasons. And it was an odd choice given that they were jumping into the final episode of a season where each episode built pretty considerably on the last. But--to each their own. 
About thirty minutes later, I come back into the living room again, and ask how it was. They were confused. It turns out that when I said it was the final one, they thought I meant the final season. Since the season had just come out the day before, and everyone was talking about it, they thought they'd start by watching what was labelled online as "the latest episode"--which would have been the first of the season, following the general logic of season premieres. What they didn't know is that the whole season came out at once, so the latest episode was also the last one. And since each episode of the season covers the same time period, there was just enough information to let them think they were watching a rather confusing premiere of a continuing series rather than the cathartic ending of that same series. And so, in thinking they were watching the first episode, they were actually watching the last episode. And I thought they knew that, though if I had said "final episode" instead of "final one," I could have known that they did not know what I knew.
It was confusing. 

Later Days.

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