The funniest show (perhaps) ever gets off to a great start

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is was one of the great TV comedies of recent years. It truly isn't like anything else you’ve seen. It has a jumpy, spontaneous, handheld look like many dramas you see these days, but it is far from serious. This is a show that has characters that are very funny on their face, and when you dig deeper into their foibles, they become even funnier. The characters are then thrown into outlandish situations at an unbelievable rate. So much happens in one episode, it's almost dizzying.

This dizzying pace is kept understandable by the dry, impeccably timed narration of Ron Howard. Because he helped create the show, he has understood from day one the importance of this narration. To quickly fill in plot holes and most hilariously, to introduce things like flashbacks, flashforwards, archived photos, etc. etc. His tone NEVER attempts to be funny. He's not telling a joke, but he is certainly setting up one joke after another. Normally, narration is a painful, lazy device that grates. But this show handles it so deftly that it is integral to its success. If the show were to eliminate the narration, it would absolutely NOT be the same show.

And kudos to all the great cast members: Jason Bateman (in the performance of his career), playing straight-man Michael, is forced to run the company started by his father and run into the ground by dad in some Enron-like scandals. They are home developers, and one scandal involves building homes in Iraq for Saddam. All the other family members mostly want to mooch off the company and basically do everything they can to make Michael's life difficult. And they also have their own ridiculous dreams and aspirations. Michael has a twin sister (Lindsey) who simply wants to be glamorous and lazy and shop all day...a dream shared by her mother (Jessica Walters), except that the mother always snipes at her daughter about her weight...Lindsy is played by the skeletally thin Portia delRossi! Lindsey is married to Tobias, a former psychiatrist trying to be an actor. Played by David Cross, he is my favorite character on the show. Deluded, possibly gay but denying it, and best of all...a truly horrific actor!!! Will Arnett plays older brother Gob (pronounced “Job”, the biblical figure) a magician, with a huge chip on his shoulder. There's younger brother Buster, who can't get out from under his mother's domineering shadow, and is the biggest mass of neurosis you'll ever see. Michael's son, George Michael, is a likable but goofy teenager, embarrassingly attracted to his trouble-maker cousin Maebe.

Sounds confusing...and if you're new to the show, it probably all would be confusing for awhile. This is that rare sitcom that greatly benefits from being viewed in chronological order, from the beginning. (Some jokes are set up in early episodes and don’t full-circle until the end of the season.) But thank God for the DVDs! Trust me, you'll laugh almost until it hurts with nearly every episode. You've never seen a sitcom like it, because there isn't one quite like it. The humor is bone, bone dry, with sprinklings of slapstick or the just plain absurd. Full of marvelous guest roles for the likes of Julia Louis Dreyfuss, an amazingly game and funny Liza Minelli and Henry Winkler. Even Blue Man Group (not til season 2, now that I think of it). What's great about season 1 is that all the performers seem to have instinctively grasped the right tone for the show right off the bat. With many great sitcoms, when you see their first few episodes, you see how they were still struggling to find their voice (MASH, SIMPSONS, SEINFELD). The AD folks were off and running from the first moment, again aided by Howard's narration. I highly, highly recommend it!!!

Word of warning for parents: The DVD set contains a longer version of the pilot episode. It's great fun to see that action-packed first show fleshed out...but apparently it must have been planned for HBO or something, because it has some pretty serious swearing in it. In later episodes, some tirades of swearing are bleeped out to absolutely hilarious effect. But keep your little ones away from the unexpurgated pilot.