New "Arrested Development" Season Coming Exclusively to Netflix!

Remember when we told you the most exciting news of 2011?  No, not the Wii U.  The news that, after five years being cancelled, the incredible Emmy-award-winning comedy Arrested Development was getting one final season and a movie!  Today, they've finally pulled back the curtain on the new season and, well, it seems the Bluths won't be hitting the airwaves, but rather your computer screens in the first half of 2013.

20th Century Fox just inked a deal with Netflix (oh, you know the one) to produce the new episodes exclusively for the US subscribers of Netflix Instant.  Oh, 2013 can't come fast enough.

This marks the second serious push toward producing original content by Netflix, with Arrested Development complementing a David Fincher political thriller House of Cards, announced earlier this year.  Also of note, Arrested Development marks the third Fox property to be revived from cancellation, with Family Guy and Futurama being the pioneers in that rise from the grave.

And with the resounding success that Fox has seen with these revived shows, is it perhaps worth revisiting other loved, but ill-fated properties to continue this trek to the digital distribution reboot?  Netflix sure could use the positive PR these days, and what could be better PR than keeping the world's army of nerds squeeing with joy?  And with the increasing number of Netflix-enabled TVs, game consoles, tablets, cell phones, computers, and set-top boxes, there's a wide audience ready to subscribe for something that has content worth the monthly fee.

I say we start with Firefly.

'Arrested Development' Headed Back to TV!

Halle-freaking-luia!  The Bluth family is reuniting, and Arrested Development is headed back to television!

The 2006 cancellation of Arrested Development remains one of the biggest mistakes (arguably, of many) that Fox has ever made regarding its programming.  That may seem like hyperbole, but it's hard to argue that it wasn't a bad idea when it was named one of the best and funniest TV shows of all time.

At the New Yorker Festival today, series creator Mitch Hurwitz announced that the Bluths will be back for a "limited" TV season before the long awaited Arrested Development movie, giving some long-awaited solace to the legion of cult show's followers (of which we here at the Fridge are proudly a part.)

The season will last about 10 episodes, with each episode dedicated to describe what each of the characters have been doing since 2006.  After that, the movie will take off right where this final final season leaves us.  While Hurwitz hopes to shoot the movie next year, he gave no word, however, on the details of the catch-up TV season.

Quite frankly, this is brilliant - not only are we finally getting some Arrested Development in our lives, but it's also being done so that the movie can avoid sacrificing jokes for the tons of exposition needed to bring us back to the Bluths.

In any event, I'm afraid I just blue myself.

Fringe Recap: Prelude to a Finale

Friday's Fringe was apropos to the holiday weekend that followed, what with all the Biblical imagery (flocks of sheep! swarms of locusts!) and the activation of a machine that could bring armageddon.  The episode's title, "6:02AM", referred to the time when Walternate switched on the Device Over Here all the way from Over There.  Peter and Olivia got to share a brief tranquil moment in bed (after a wide-eyed and bushy-tailed Walter offered to make Olivia breakfast - naked), where Olivia tells Peter that morning, with its infinite possibility, is her favorite part of the day.  As it is in TV, particularly scifi TV, happiness is short-lived and the team is summoned to the field where we saw those previously mentioned flocks of sheep and swarms of locusts and then informed about the Device via product-placement cell phone.  It's clearly going to be one hell of a day.   Many fringe events were happening across the country, a response to Walternate's activation of the device.  The fabric between our universes is tearing for good, with devastating repercussions. 

This episode was a lot of set up, sliding the pieces into place for what promises to be a great finale.  But we got some truly exceptional moments, notably from a scene in Walter's office where he and Peter share a drink and chat about life, death, and destiny - you know, light stuff.  Walter mentions the Observer's words from a previous episode: "Give me the keys and save the girl" and how they resonate in his and Peter's relationship. It's time for Walter to let go and give up parental control he wasn't able to when his Peter died all those years ago.  But Peter is no longer a child, but a man who now needs to take his fate in his own hands.  Walter actually discussing this with Peter is a step forward for him, and it shows how their relationship has grown as Walter has grown personally.  His later monologue in the hospital chapel underscores the fear he's been expressing these last few episodes, but he is no longer trying to actively stop Peter - a big leap forward for our favorite mad scientist.     

Hit the jump for the full recap of "6:02AM"!

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[BREAKING] Great News In Any Universe: 'Fringe' Renewed!

News is breaking that acclaimed sci-fi drama Fringe has been renewed for a fourth season!  The news was confirmed on Twitter by executive producer Joel Wyman:

The pickup had been in doubt following the decision by FOX to move the show to the dreaded "Friday Night Death Slot" back in December.  The move was widely feared by fans, prompting FOX to release a promo video to ease fan speculation that the show is being pushed into a shallow grave:

With the news of a fourth season renewal, and a FULL season at that, the fears of all Fringe fans out there can finally be put to rest.  The story is still developing, but personally, I can say that this is one Fringe fan who cannot wait to see what new crazy antics Walter, Peter, and Olivia get themselves into this fall.

'Fringe' Recap: For Whom the Bell Tolls

The ominous "Soul Magnets" research file. Credit: Fox, S3E16, "Os."

Friday's episode of Fringe was very well-balanced, as much of this season has been. After last week's excellent flashback to Olivia's, Peter's, and Walter's past, it was nice to see Peter and Olivia all grown up again in this week's episode, "Os" (short for Osmium, one of the densest and heaviest metals on Earth), which had just the right seamless blend of fringe science and Over Here/Over There mythology.  Furthering the plot toward the supposedly inevitable collision of the two worlds, our intrepid team set upon the task of discovering how a mad scientist, Dr. Crick (hi there, Alan Ruck!  You will forever be Ferris Bueller's bff to me!), was making men float by using such a dense material. 

Despite Walter's best efforts, he and Astrid were not able to figure what was going on, which may very well be a first for them.  Walter managed to figure out that the osmium was combined another extremely heavy element, lutetium, but still couldn't deduce how men were flying. There was no shortage of gore on hand, as the test subjects bled from their orifices, Walter tasked Astrid with disposing of an obscene amount of blood ("I went to Quantico for this!??!" was a great line) and Crick sawed off limbs to further his research, where his test subjects were paralyzed from the waist down and thus willing to steal more material to allow them to walk and fly.

Hit the jump for the full recap and for some exciting renewal news!

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Brought to you by the letter F: 'Fringe,' Fridays, Fireflies, and First in Ratings

Fringe returned from its winter hiatus this past Friday, winning its time slot with nearly 5 million viewers and kicking off 2011 with one helluva episode guest-starring none other than Doc Brown himself, the inimitable Christopher Lloyd. It is great to see one of the few sci-fi shows on network TV performing well and continuing to set the writing/acting bar very high indeed.

Fringe has steadily impressed me, a notorious television snob, since it debuted in 2008. It has thankfully deviated from the freak-of-the-week X-Files vibe and morphed into one of the most original shows on television. Unique elements include Walter’s boundary-pushing inventions (don’t forget his recipe for the perfect strawberry milkshake), the fun little ways Over There differs from Over Here, the badass room with the typewriter, the red vs. blue color dichotomy (Walter’s glasses this week, hello!), the glyph code every commercial break, and the appearance of The Observer in every episode (whether he has lines or not) have allowed Fringe to create a mythos of its own. This week’s episode, “The Firefly,”showcased everything that is intriguing and fun about the show while furthering the mythology and giving fans something to talk about.

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