I give points to any show for not going with the standard three-cameras-and-a-laugh-track format, so Arrested Development gets some points right out of the box. Having Ron Howard narrate it? More points. Jeffery Tambor as the dad, points.
The actual content? A reasonable pile of points, not as many as one might hope for, but it’s a start. The show is built around a family that has been living well on corporate money, until the father is arrested for, well, living well on corporate money. Now it’s up to the one responsible (if not completely likable) grown son to take care of the rest of the group.
The risk that I see here is that the bad family members are largely so over-the-top annoying that they won’t really be funny, but merely annoying. Oh, there are bright spots — Tambor, and the two kids playing cousins flirting at incest, but it’s going to be a balancing act. But it’s one that I’ll watch to see fi they pull off.
