Finished Arrested Development Season 4 Remix: Fateful Consequences (yes, that’s actually what it’s called).

I liked it loads better than the original season 4. However, it should be noted that it’s not perfect.

According to series creator Mitchell Hurwitz, its primary purpose was to have a version of season 4 that can be sold as part of a syndication package for TV broadcast. As such, there is a lot of time spent recapping earlier episodes and plotlines, which would probably be fine if you’re just catching a random episode on TV, but feels really awkward while binge-watching the season.
A positive from the above point, however, is that the season is now 22 episodes of exactly 22 minutes in length each, with act breaks for commercials and all. In other words, the pacing now feels much more like seasons 1-3.
The new format means that some storylines that once dragged when focused on for a full 30 minutes (George & Oscar, Tobias, Lindsey) are elevated when sprinkled throughout multiple episodes in smaller doses. I still don’t like DeBrie and Marky Bark, but they’re not as irritating when you know you’re getting more GOB and Lucille right around the corner.
Having said that, the new format means that some storylines that worked well when contained in their own episode (Michael, George Michael, GOB) now somewhat suffer when spread out. They’re still good, but the shuffling around for these episodes can kind of confuse things for some characters.
The lead-up to Cinco de Cuatro works much better now, and I love the montage of each character’s final interaction with Lucille 2 - it does wonders to set up season 5.

Despite all the above, there’s still the fact that the story wasn’t written this way, and while it’s nice to see it all pieced together semi-chronologically, it also shows that the timeline wasn’t quite as tight as it might have seemed when everything was separated. It also means some jokes and reveals that were spread out across the entire season before now don’t work the same way - FakeBlock is the biggest example of this. It’s still funny, but now it’s funny for a different reason, and every conversation about it that was pre-reveal in the original season 4 is now heavily recontextualized. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s because - again - the season wasn’t written to be shown this way.

Overally, I still massively prefer the remix to the original season 4. It feels so much more like Arrested Development, and its shortcomings aren’t as severe in my opinion as the original version’s were.

Oh, and Ron Howard is the MVP of the remix - I swear at least 80% of his narration is brand new, and he does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to putting things in context. And the remix is 100% worth it for the narrator’s new joke about George Michael’s age difference in the first episode and two new “Sound of Silence” gags (one of which is fairly subtle and really caught me off guard).

I’d say it’s required viewing before season 5 shows up in the next couple weeks, even if you liked season 4 the way it was (but especially if you didn’t). As someone on Reddit put it, the original season 4 is a puzzle in pieces, and the remix is the puzzle all put together.

Arrested Development original Season 4 - 6/10
Arrested Development Season 4 Remix - 8/10

(For context - seasons 1 and 2 are 10/10 and season 3 is 9/10 for me.)