Sure, not all of it worked, but the best bits - George-Michael’s FakeBlock tech saga, Tobias’ Fantastic Four remake with Maria Bamford’s DeBrie, GOB and Tony Wonder’s face-swapping romance - were as clever and riotously funny as the show’s finest moments. The show’s first Netflix season boldly experimented with form, and followed each character individually rather than the Bluths as a family unit, in part to work around the cast’s busy schedules. I don’t need actors to be saints, but listening to a group of men gloss over the distress of a female colleague in favour of supporting the man who admits her claim reveals so much about them – and about us – that I think I may be done.The unjust critical drubbing that Season 4 took might actually be to blame here. I watched the five preview episodes before the story broke, but I find it hard to envisage sufficiently suspending my disbelief to enjoy the rest. For others – including me – the division is more porous. The art is one thing, its creators are another and never the twain shall meet during the 27 minutes of each show.

Bateman has since apologised, but it is an astonishing vignette that spawned outcry and forensic dissections of the many vexed contemporary issues it encapsulates.ĭoes it – should it – affect our viewing of the programme? Some people will be able to bifurcate things perfectly. Bateman and other male co-stars then defended Tambor and attempted to smooth over the incident as Walter became tearful. In an extraordinary publicity interview with the New York Times, a reporter alluded to a reference Tambor had made elsewhere about losing his temper with Walter, who confirmed the incident, noting that in 60 years of working she had “never had anybody yell at me like that on a set”. Not as painful, of course, as what has unfolded offscreen. Gob and George faking libidinous intent on a Mexican road trip was particularly painful. Too many lines that once would have been oblique, glancing, featherlight suggestions now stomp on to the screen and shout their arrival before collapsing fatally in a heap. But the pacing is off, the chemistry not quite what it was. These are usually in the fleeting realisations, hopes and despairs that cross Bateman’s perfect everyman face and in lines such as “I can hear Mother blinking”, as well as in Lucille’s ongoing intellectual struggle with how her “put all rapists and murderers on one island together” solution to society’s ills would pan out.

It has, as the mystery of Lucille Two’s disappearance begins to force the Bluths to intersect again, despite Michael’s increasing weariness, moments that recall the glory days. Season five – the first eight episodes of which were released on Tuesday – is … not too bad. What has happened in the past week or so – more of which later – is arguably worse. What came next, in 2013, was a poorly judged, overambitious season four, the 15 bloated (largely single-character, to accommodate the actors’ many commitments) episodes of which were remixed into 22 more standard instalments earlier this month to little better effect. If I am lingering too long on the golden age, forgive me.

Arrested development narrator best