Arrested Development's New Season to Premiere in May as a Possible Prelude to a Feature Film

Creator Mitch Hurwitz and the entire cast share scoop on new episodes at Netflix's TCA panel

By Jenna Mullins Jan 09, 2013 11:15 PMTags
Arrested Development CastArt Streiber/FOX

If you heard the faint sound of "Final Countdown" playing in your head, it could be because Netflix has finally zeroed in on when fans can expect the new episodes of Arrested Development. Finally!

If you have appointments with your analyst-therapist (or "anal-rapist"), in the month of May, reschedule them. That is when the Bluth family will be back in our TV lives. Doesn't that fact give you tingles?

On Wednesday afternoon, creator Mitch Hurwitz and the cast of Arrested took the stage at the TCA Winter Press Tour to talk about what we can expect from the new episodes, which might be setting up a feature film:

Jason Bateman doesn't want fans to call this season four, but it should be referred to as an "act one" that will lead to a feature film. "These are episodes that set that up." However, if the feature film doesn't happen, the new episodes won't leave viewers hanging. "It is certainly a satisfying conclusion to these episodes if for some reason a movie doesn't happen, but they are all meant to work within one another as a hybrid package of Arrested Development stuff," Bateman insisted.

•The show is structured to tell stories from each character's perspective. Meaning, we'll see some scenes more than once, just from a different point of view. "The only way we could get everybody for what we will loosely call an anthology was to dedicate each episode to a character's a point of view," Hurwitz said.

•The lockdown on storylines and spoilers was very intentional, so they could reward fans for sticking with the show. "We all started really guarding the material, just to make it fun for the audience," Hurwitz revealed.