Seasons 1-3:

Arresting & Constantly Developing

The first three seasons of this comedy are brilliant. Maybe a few episodes have to be sat through before you can truly appreciate it, and at times it can be incredibly frustrating to see the character's selfishness, but this all builds excellently.

Call backs to previous episodes, characters and jokes provide a lot of the big laughs, and at times you have to pay attention to notice the background jokes which just make this comedy so unique. The cast have brilliant chemistry, and the serialisation flows so well.

Bateman is perfect as the lead, and all the supporting characters could not have been cast better. So, definitely watch the first 3 series.

Rating: 10/10

Netflix Reboot:

Reboot Dud

Unfortunately seasons 4 & 5 are a far cry from the original show. They were right to re-edit season 4 into 20-minute episodes after the original releases were too long. But, this means that 25% of every episode is now a recap of what's already happened, as you try to follow a timeline chronologically from several different arcs which eventually interlink.

The template to the first three seasons are similar in terms of jokes, but they fall flat, and there aren't anywhere near as many laughs. Frequently in every episode voices are dubbed and it's so evident that it can't fall into fourth wall breaking but just amateurism. The decision to cast Seth Rogan and Kristen Wiig as the young Bluths seems like an attempt to shoehorn in a couple more big names, but their scenes lose a lot of the humour created by having the original actors playing their younger selves. It's disappointing that the original show couldn't hold on to its quality after Netflix picked it up.

Season 5 is more of the same. Fortunately no constant recaps, and it actually has arcs where the family are together, plus Barry and Buster offer some relief occasionally, but ultimately the show is no better. Another recast of the young Bluths makes flashback scenes just painful to watch. Just let it die, Netflix.

Rating: 5/10.