60% is not above average. On a 4 star scale, it's 2.5 stars. It's a C. It's so painfully average. From a show that was once considered the best of all time, that's utter garbage. It's the same score "God Friended Me" and "Me My Friend and I" has ... and has a lower score than Roseanne. We're talking less well received than "Comrade Detective" and over thirty points lower than The Good Place or Silicon Valley. If you don't think that's a massive difference in critical reception, and a monumental disappointment for what the show expected to be, then that's fine with me. I don't feel any need to argue semantics and am very comfortable saying this got bad reviews compared to what it was supposed to be, compared to what else is on TV, compared to what it wanted, and even the "good" reviews are middling. The Collider review being about right: It makes one think about how the characters of Arrested Development are always trying to teach each other lessons — maybe there’s an important one here about quitting while you’re ahead. I don't need to watch all of a TV show to know what I saw was awful. That's clearly obvious, and you're just looking for a reason to argue if you're going to try and make that case. Hell, the best review for season 5? Is Tim Goodman. This is his final sentence: But Arrested Development will always be a series that fails to satisfy the expectations of every fan. Not everybody thought Michael Jordan was good when he came back, either. From the halfway point in its new season, it looks like a solid and welcome return to form, which makes me excited to see the rest.The best review is about the show halfway through.
Never mind. Making up your own definitions and changing your stances post after post after post makes this not worth discussing.
AD was my favorite show of all time until season 5. S4 is one I will always defend, due to the sheer attention to detail & insane structuring that had to be done, and some truly beautiful moments of subtle hilarity.... but S5 was entirely forgettable and dull. I honestly don’t even remember how it ended, and until popping into this thread, I had totally spaced that there’s still another 8 episodes to come! I was shocked at how little creativity was put into S5; so much so, that it turned me off the show quite a bit. Like I said, S4 worked for me, but I’m totally okay with calling 1-3 the entire show, because those are the seasons that charmed me and kept me coming back for repeat viewings (like, a LOT of repeat viewings). I have zero initiative to go back and rewatch S5 right now. I will eventually, but I think it’s pretty clear that the spark is too hard to reignite when you can’t get the commitment from the entire creative team. Kinda like the final season of Scrubs, as Craig so eloquently puts it on Parks & Rec (“A teaching hospital?! Come on!”).
I'm perfectly comfortable saying season 5 is bad, and that's completely separate from all of the other negative things surrounding it. It's just not good, in my opinion, it's almost never funny and comes across as an exercise in desperately trying to recapture magic that is just no longer there. And this is coming from someone who has been a staunch defender of season 4 (the original cut) in the past. It's to the point where if the rest of season 5 never came out, I honestly wouldn't care.
I am also completely comfortable in saying season 5 is outright bad. The spark is almost completely gone, the plot has become nonsense, the show is 90% Ron Howard reciting exposition, the joke hit-to-miss ratio took a massive nosedive (and that’s in addition to the volume/pace of jokes going way down), and the few jokes that do work are mostly callbacks to previous seasons.
I'll rewatch S5 when the second half comes out but all I really remember from it was the George-Michael/Maeby stuff, which I actually liked
I'll continue to defend S4, though it's clearly not the same show as the first 3. I didn't hate 5, but it's nothing special. I'll finish it when the second half comes out. The finale of S3 is the series finale for me, and everything after is just a "what if..." story.
I have a feeling all fo the drama around the release of it had them push back the remaining episodes,,, also sounds like there wont be another season so netflix trying to drag it out
Despite loving the original run and rewatching it probably a dozen times, I've never even felt the urge to watch past the original cut of S4.
I am in the camp that enjoyed season five but at this point, I wouldn't be upset if it was the last. We already have three excellent seasons and two okay ones, pretty good run imo
I don't really agree that this holds as one of the funniest comedy ever, but it's obviously one of the smartest
Watching this for the first time. First 3 seasons were great and am in the middle of 4. I like how it picks up almost right after the ending of 3 even though so much real time has passed in between the seasons.