Netflix has announced that Arrested Development, one of its first original comedy shows, will leave the platform on March 15. As a result, fans who want to catch up on the television sitcom have until March 14 to do so.
Netflix announced the development via the show’s landing page. The streamer also revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that its departure is due to an expiring licensing agreement.
Arrested Development follows a dysfunctional wealthy family, the Bluths, that has fallen on hard times and, the family's only son, Michael Bluth, is trying to keep everything from falling apart. The show’s pilot episode starts with the family’s patriarch being arrested for fraud by the SEC. Over the course of the following seasons, the show details the family’s challenges and how they cope. The final season wraps up the different storylines and gives a satisfactory, albeit critically reviled, ending to the story.
Arrested Development debuted on Fox in 2003 and ran for three seasons until 2006 when the network canceled it due to low viewership. In 2013, seven years after Fox’s cancellation, Arrested Development season four premiered on Netflix. But, it would be another five years before the fifth and final season premiered on the streaming platform.
Unfortunately, the fourth and fifth seasons couldn’t replicate the critical prowess of the first three seasons, which led Netflix to pull the plug on it.
Arrested Development starred Jason Bateman, Tony Hale, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, and David Cross. The Russo brothers, best known for their Marvel slate of films, including Avengers: Endgame, directed the pilot episode and served as producers. Mitchell Hurwitz, who created the show, was one of the executive producers, alongside Ron Howard, David Nevins, Jim Vallely, Brian Grazer, and Troy Miller.
By the way, the first three seasons of the series are available on Hulu, and fans can still watch them on that platform even after Netflix removes them. However, the final two seasons are exclusive to Netflix as it co-produced them with 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine Entertainment. Fingers crossed, a different platform will pick Arrested Development up so fans can enjoy all five seasons together in one sitting.
Speaking of picking up canceled Netflix shows, Showtime has gotten the rights to do a second season of Uncoupled after its cancellation.
