“A Huge Mistake�: Digital Technology and the Revival of Arrested Development Andrew B. Young Emory University (MA, 2015)
Now the story of a television series that lost everything and the fans who had no choice but to keep it all together.
On February 10th, 2006, Arrested Development aired its final episode on network television, something that fans considered to be a premature conclusion to this short-lived, yet apparently aptly-titled sitcom. Despite its loyal cult following, executives at Fox decided to cancel the series after three seasons of poor ratings. This turned out to be a huge mistake, because on May 26th, 2013, season four of the series premiered on Netflix as part of the company’s new
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original programming lineup. Both fans and critics responded to this revival generally positively, donning the season with three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. The cancellation and subsequent revival of the series are as high profile as the antics of the Bluth family itself, and they indicate how drastically the television industry has evolved over a mere seven years. At the center of this evolution lies the impact of digital technology, which has completely rewritten the guidelines for producing and distributing a popular television series.
“…it appears that as long as fans stick together, they will continue to have a formative impact on media franchises and their reception within the cultural mainstream.” It would not be an overstatement to declare that Arrested Development would still be cancelled if it were not for the devotion of its fans. In “Interactive Audiences?” Henry Jenkins discusses fan communities and their role in determining the fate of their favorite media franchises: “As the community enlarges and as reaction time shortens, fandom becomes much more effective as a platform for consumer activism” (161). As Jenkins envisions it, this consumer activism, as well as the prominence of the Internet as the site of most fan communities, is a way for fans to participate in a media franchise in an almost real-time manner. Consequently, this participation shapes the franchise by either influencing narrative developments or simply demonstrating its popularity to producers and securing its future. Furthermore, Jenkins mentions that as fandom grows and diversifies, “it moves from cult status towards the cultural mainstream, with more Internet users engaged in some form of fan activity” (161). However, fan communities are generally ambivalent about such a transition. On one hand, the cultural mainstream draws attention, attracts more fans, and generates vibrant discussion within the community. But on the other hand, this new social status alienates older fans from the franchise and threatens to fracture the community as diverse perspectives inevitably collide with each other. Overall, it appears that as long as fans stick together, they will continue to have a formative impact on media franchises and their reception within the cultural mainstream. The fan community behind Arrested Development mostly fulfills the characteristics that Jenkins Watercooler Journal
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applies to fandom, especially its indebtedness to digital technology. After the series was cancelled, fans on the Internet not only continued to discuss some of their favorite characters and episodes, but they were also able to keep the show somewhat alive by introducing it to new viewers, consequently growing the community. Through media such as DVDs, televised syndication on the G4 network, and Netflix’s “Watch Instantly,” both old and new fans continued to watch the series, eventually rescuing it from its cult status and thrusting it into the cultural mainstream. In addition to raising public awareness of the series, fans were able to demonstrate not necessarily consumer activism but rather a kind of retro-activism by trying to bring it back into production and attempting to influence narrative developments. In “The Persistent Cult of Arrested Development,” Will Leitch discusses the fan community and its significance in reviving the series: “The cult became so strong that not only did fans manage to bring the show back, they also tried—on fan sites and comment threads and in e-mail campaigns—to make sure some of their favorite smaller characters returned, too.” Indeed, digital technology was inherent in the grassroots effort to produce a fourth season as fans gathered in online forums and articulated their demands for more episodes.
While fans formed and mobilized this effort to bring back Arrested Development, the television industry underwent an unprecedented evolution. In “The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television,” William Uricchio addresses YouTube, how it emulates television, and how it is changing the industry. His main point is that the Internet complicates a traditional conception Watercooler Journal
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of television: “the industrial era of television, with us since the early 1950s, is fast changing under the pressure from the disaggregation of content from media platforms characteristic of today’s cross-media industries, and as a response to bottom-up appropriations of the affordances of networked computers and various mobile devices” (36). Uricchio advocates expanding this conception of television and how it operates in light of the rising influence of the Internet and its decentralizing effect on the industry. Although he does not factor Netflix into his discussion, his argument does provide a useful frame for the website and for thinking about how it transforms television. Overall, the role of Netflix in this evolving industry gains prominence as viewers increasingly engage in it as a form of television.
“The cancellation and subsequent revival of the series are as high profile as the antics of the Bluth family itself, and they indicate how drastically the television industry has evolved over a mere seven years.” Conversely, what makes Netflix so appealing as a distributor is not its similarity to network television but rather its difference from network television. On January 9th, 2013, creator of Arrested Development Mitch Hurwitz said in an interview with USA Today that Netflix’s model “flies in the face of everything that’s been going on in television forever.” Specifically, he celebrated the distribution of all episodes at once, allowing viewers to watch new episodes at their own pace. In addition to giving viewers control over when they watch episodes, Netflix also gives them control over how they watch episodes. Indeed, just as Uricchio argues about the trans-media nature of the television industry, Netflix provides its members with so many different ways to “Watch Instantly” that viewers can watch the fourth season of the series without ever having to flip on a television. Consequently, Arrested Development exemplifies the very non-traditional model for television that Uricchio sees as provided by digital technology. Netflix gives viewers far more power than network television, and it is only a matter of time before it replaces network television as the dominant model. Some critics wrote that the fourth season of Arrested Development suffered without some of the constraints that network television places on production (those which encourage brevity and subtlety). However, fans attest to getting what they wanted. After seven years of online petitions, e-mail campaigns, and forum debates, fans were able to bring back the series that Watercooler Journal
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they had likely discovered on the Internet rather than on television. But, thanks to the simplicity of online distribution, the series returned to computer screens, tablets, and even televisions. Consequently, the question to consider for the future is not whether or not this still qualifies as television; rather, the question is how far digital technology will continue to expand this beloved medium.
works cited Jenkins, Henry. "Interactive Audiences?." The New Media Book. Ed. Dan Harries. London: BFI Pub., 2002. 157-70. Print. Uricchio, William. "The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television." The YouTube Reader. Eds. Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden, 2009. 24-37. PDF. image credits, in order: ŠFox Network @Netflix, via http://www.avclub.com Watercooler Journal
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