I Haven't Watched New Arrested Development Yet and That's Fine

So to start with, let it be known that I love AD. It's ace. No one is saying that it isn't ace, mostly because they'd be met with "Guh!", or just old that they 'haven't gotten into it properly yet'. But the show has recently been building up a huge amount of momentum leading up to the release of the new season on Netflix last week to a level that started to irritate me, mostly because I'm mean spirited. I understand why people are hailing this return, it's a great show, and bringing it back feels sort of like our devoted fandom has won some kind of nerd-victory and undone one of the greatest cultural injustices since firefly. But now that it's back, it's back. My suggestion is just that everyone slow down, take a breath, and enjoy it in your own time, rather than thumbing the pages like we're 13 year olds with the latest Harry Potter book again.

Being a fan of something shouldn't make you temporarily homeless

When I saw the first 3 seasons, I watched it slowly and really enjoyed it. If you binged through all of them fine. But I suppose what irritates me is the pressure, or at least the expectation, as if we all need to get to the end as quickly as possible before somebody tells us Michael Bluth was Bruce Willis all along and ruins the whole ending. I don't really believe that this is a series that particularly can be ruined, it's a number of densely written highly packed jokes, most of which we're familiar with now,  because they revolve around a set of characters and situations that we know and recognise. There can't really be any spoilers. 

But another part of the urgency I believe, is in the necessity to instantly form an opinion on it and judge it. Is it as good as it was? Have they lost it? Then you communicate this opinion to others and interact with the 'I like AD' community. If you haven't seen it, you lose the ability to form opinions on it and your social stake in that community goes down. So having watched the show or not, no longer pertains to your personal enjoyment of it, or your leisure time, it's now just something you have to do in order to wear a badge of pride for having done so. It's important to state at this point, that I don't intend to tell anyone what to do, you want to blitz through it, that's fine, but what I resent is the expectation that anyone who is a fan should and must be doing so. It's a good show, but it really doesn't affect my life that much, I mean it's not sex and the city.

I feel trapped and frustrated by it, but then I would do, I'm a Michael.

Also, whilst we're on the subject, spoilers aren't a big deal. Like, at all. People should chill out about that too. One of the other pitfalls, and this really is no ones fault, is that knowing that I haven't seen it, the people who have are actually very conscientious and try to shield me from any experience or knowledge of what might have happened in the new season, as if I'm a baby bird that needs to be protected from the wind. I wish that the concept of spoilers just did not exist, and that everyone felt happy and liberated enough to speak plainly like an adult about something that they've seen that they think you'd want to know about. 'Michael dies at the end because his butt explodes', is a conversation that naturally won't occur, because it has no value. But 'the journey and development of Michael in this season is really fascinating' is something that can be of interest to anyone regardless of whether they've seen it or not. And just because I've not seen something myself, doesn't mean I'm going to jam my fingers in my ears and run out the room screaming every time it's brought up, or I overhear it in someone else's conversation.

I remember reading at one point, that people shouldn't be so pedantic about the exact way that the experience a new piece of media. You don't need to commit yourself to total sensory deprivation until you experience it, just chill out, remmeber that you're supposed to enjoy it. A lack of knowledge is not supposed to be a precious invisible piece of glass that you carry round with you, worried that it might fall and break before you have the chance to see the show.

I don't know, chill out maybe. Or don't. Do whatever. The only person anyone seems to be irritating is me, so there's a very good chance that I'm just a belligerent arsehole.