Since learning last month that Arrested Development will be headed back to both the big and small screens, one of the big questions on fans’ minds was where the show would be airing. Would it air to Fox or make it’s grand return to TV via some other channel? As it turns out, the answer is neither.
Netflix will be the new home of Arrested Development. Deadline posted the announcement, which states they’ll be airing the episodes through their watch-instantly service and they’ll be available to U.S. subscribers beginning in 2013.
When the original announcement was made that Arrested Development was returning to television, word was that creator Mitchell Hurwitz planned to do nine or ten episodes of the series in anticipation of the show’s jump to the big screen. The announcement doesn't specify exactly how many episodes there will be, but the series' return feels more official now that we know where it's going to air. Next up will be learning whether or not all of the original cast members will return. EW says no contracts have been finalized yet.
The fact that the series will debut on Netflix is likely to please subscribers, and probably disappoint those who don’t subscribe to the streaming video service. But given the relatively low cost of Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service, this news is not all that different than if the series were returning to a pay-cable network.
Arrested Development joins House of Cards and possibly Jenji Kohan's Orange is the new Black (the deal is still pending on that one last we heard) as projects Netflix has in the works.
