/ disr e spec t ing t he life c ycle – w hen pop cu lt u r e come s back from t he de a d
their own niche interests. Nothing ever reaches critical mass in pop culture like, say Michael Jackson in 1984, to give an example. Obviously we’ll always have hit pop songs, movies and T V shows. But we are frequently living in a splintered pop culture landscape, with dozens of quirky oddities that have their own relatively small, yet extremely loyal followings. In some cases, thanks to the Internet’s organizing opportunities, these groups have actually willed dead projects back into existence, either by literally paying for them through a vehicle like Kickstarter, or simply by showing there was enough of a market to warrant their continuation. Take the case of Arrested Development. After Fox canceled the sitcom midway through its third season, Arrested Development took on a cult-like status for close to 10 years. If this was 1993, that’s probably what it would have a remained – a cult obsession that would live on in the hearts and minds of its fans and whoever happens to be
standing next to them at a party. But in 2013, with more and more entities getting into the “T V” business, Arrested Development was re-animated and now actually exists again in the present – sort of. Seeing that the original episodes still attracted plenty of viewers on Netf lix, the company – new to producing content – decided it would produce a new “fourth season” of Arrested Development, close to a decade after the show was unceremoniously given the axe. A ll the main actors from the cast returned, but it wasn’t exactly the show fans so fondly remembered. Due to scheduling complications, most of the actors couldn’t f ilm at the same time, meaning the majority of the scenes typically consisted of only one or two of the regulars. W hile it was certainly similar to the classic episodes of the show, many critics pointed out that “Arrested 2.0” didn’t quite have the same f low that made the original so great.
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