Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Arrested Development Season 4

Of course, right after I post a blog about not binging on media, what do I do?

The fourth season of Arrested Development premiered on Netflix on Sunday, May 26th, and I couldn't help but join in with my brothers and watch four episodes. True, they are only about 25mins each, but that was a lot of television for me in one sitting! Thankfully it was worth it, and the time spent revisiting the Bluths and Funkes was a welcome addition to my Memorial Day weekend. The jokes had us all laughing until we cried, especially for anything involving Portia de Rossi!

Is this the next step in new-media television? In the past five months alone we have seen canceled television shows given new hope in the form of wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns, (Veronica Mars), and also a constant debate about whether or not HBO should cut the cord and allow a subscription service for viewers who prefer what I call "tablet television" - streaming of content from the web on an iPad or Kindle Fire. I won't lie - I am one of the tablet television dreamers, grabbing bits of programming when I have a down moment, which is rarely in the living room. However, this new wave of original streaming content available for subscribers only makes me wonder what else we will see in the near future as far as television is concerned?

I've watched a few festival movies on demand via iTunes, most memorably Lars von Trier's Melancholia, which didn't have a wide release anywhere near my home. It was nice to be able to have access to festival films when the hype was at a high for them, since it gave me a chance to be part of the discussion surrounding them. Hopefully there will be more of this sort of  direct, non-hassle access to exclusive programming coming our way again soon.  I can get used to this!

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