Culture Jammin’: Pop-pop gets a treat
I’ve just been made aware of this wonderful news:
Apparently IFC is showing two episodes of Arrested Development every Tuesday night.
DVR set.
Arrested Development, if you’re unfamiliar, is the best thing that’s ever been on TV. I know the popular thing among people with good taste is to say it’s The Wire, and I absolutely loved The Wire and think it’s almost certainly the second best thing to ever be on TV.
But Arrested Development is a special, special show. It’s like what would happen if James Joyce wrote a sitcom, only more comprehensible. Honestly, watch it tonight and pay attention: Every detail matters. Every joke is funny in isolation and in the larger context of the show. If you don’t laugh in every scene, you’re almost certainly missing something.
It’s downright perfect. All the performances are stellar, the pace is right, everything.
The second episode IFC airs tonight will be “Pier Pressure,” arguably the masterpiece in a series chock full of masterpieces.
I took a screenwriting class once and the teacher told us he kept two scripts at his desk. I forget which they were, but one was to remind him that there were produced screenplays that he was capable of writing to keep him confident, and one to remind him that there were screenplays he was incapable of writing to keep him working to get better.
Arrested Development is that second thing. But it’s so tightly crafted, so overwhelmingly well-planned, that it’s way more depressing than it is intimidating. No one could ever hope to create anything so awesome.
We’re still better off for its having been made, though.
