Arrested Development and 24? Come on!

In theaters Friday: Star Trek Into Darkness, Frances Ha

New on Blu-ray: Cloud Atlas, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III

What year is it? Apparently the past decade was all a dream and we’re still in 2003, because the big news out of Hollywood this week is that 24, with star Kiefer Sutherland, is set to return for a new 12-episode season in 2014. The answer to how 24 hours will be squeezed into 12 will have to wait for now though, because, “Hey, brother!” The long-awaited fourth season of dysfunctional family comedy Arrested Development is less than two weeks away. All streaming. All at once. Let the Memorial Day binge-watching begin.

But what’s even more curious than the unlikely return of these gems of the departed Dubya era, is the fact that both shows are arriving again in serial form (see there, I almost typed “television;” sorry Netflix) after failed attempts at becoming feature films.

After low ratings on Fox had pulled the plug on three critically-acclaimed seasons, Arrested creator Mitchell Hurwitz and producer/narrator Ron Howard struggled, ironically, for years with how to develop their property and cast of increasingly popular actors (Jason Bateman and Michael Cera in particular, after Juno and Superbad) into a big ticket comedy on par with a then-hot crop of Judd Apatow or Todd Phillips blockbusters. A script everyone agreed upon never materialized and scheduling the large cast together was difficult when everyone was interested, and impossible when they weren’t. Cera, who is now a co-writer for the show, was rumored to be holding out for a while.

But perhaps this is for the best. Hurwitz has described this “season” as feeling like an “eight-and-a-half hour movie.” And Netflix certainly could not have found a better show to test its successful House of Cards model on comedy with than a series whose cult following is as sizable and devoted as this one. Plus, this time, Arrested, loaded with an oddball mix of meta-references, heady, Wes Anderson-esque humor and screwball farce doesn’t have to find its audience. With Netflix instant streaming and 10 years of hype, the audience will find it. There’s always money in the banana stand.

Arrested Development returns May 26. Watch the trailer below, and a super-cut of 200 great quotes from the comedy’s original run: