Watched this with lady buffcoat yesterday on Netflix Instant. It's Mitchell Hurwitz/Will Arnett/David Cross' followup to "Arrested Development," where Fox told Hurwitz specifically "we don't want another Arrested Development."
They made him make huge changes in the show idea, and it's clear. It feels like Arrested Development 2 deliberately dumbed down. I think Mitchell Hurwitz needs to accept that, as painful as the idea is, he is never going to achieve mainstream success with a TV sitcom. His mind just can't produce what people want, and one of the clearest lessons for entertainment is that people don't want dumbed-down smart guy's half-hour sitcoms, they want sitcoms that start out dumb and get worse. I am not being cynical.
As for the show, it's occasionally funny and followable, although they showed it entirely out of order, making the already baffling plot even more baffling. Arnett and Felicity have no chemistry whatsoever. Peter Serafinowicz and Arnett are funny. Some of the side characters are bolted on. The hardest thing to understand is how on earth they thought they could keep the plotline going for 9 more episodes, much less another season or more.
If you have several hours on a Sunday and feel like watching Will Arnett and Peter Serafinowicz yuk it up for a few hours in a failed sitcom, it's not a bad watch. I want to say it could have been more but I don't think it could.
