All hilarious things must come to an end. Arrested Development will be removed from Netflix on March 15, but what will happen to those two Netflix-produced seasons?
Arrested Development follows Michael Bluth, played by Jason Bateman, as he tries to clear his money-hungry family out of the holes they have discovered themselves in. The show has won recognition and even Emmy Awards, but it never really grew a following, and the Fox network canceled it after three seasons.
Netflix revived the series about a decade later and produced two subsequent seasons, which were less popular than the original episodes. The cast came back for season four, although they were mostly isolated in their own narratives.
The Arrested Development episodes on Netflix were one of the first original projects on the streaming service for many years, and the series as a whole has been a fixture for many years. Hulu is owned by 20th Century Fox, but as far as the Netflix-produced episodes, that's still to be determined. It may be an MCU-like situation where episodes go to another service, similar to Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Punisher, and Iron Fist came to Disney Plus.
The impact of Arrested Development is unmistakable. Alia Shawkat, who played Maeby Fünke's troubled niece in FX's The Old Man, has gone on to star in Veep and won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2013. Hale also starred in The Mysterious Benedict Society on Disney Plus, which ran for two seasons.
The Russo brothers directed the first episode of Marvel, Avengers: Infinity War, and Endgame, and directed NBC's comedy Community.
Arrested Development's removal follows a trend of long-running shows being eliminated from streaming platforms entirely, as HBO Max has sent the likes of Westworld to Tubi. This is a short-lived trend that will not affect too many other shows and movies.