The good news: we’re getting more Arrested Development! The (potentially!) bad news: we’re getting more Arrested Development. 
 
 After years of negotiations, teases, and knowing deferrals—as Ron Howard told Vanity Fair just last month, “I don’t want to be coy, but, well, I’m absolutely being coy!”—Netflix has finally announced that a fifth season of the beloved sitcom will premiere sometime in 2018. “In talks with Netflix we all felt that stories about a narcissistic, erratically behaving family in the building business—and their desperate abuses of power—are really underrepresented on TV these days,” series creator Mitchell Hurwitz said in a statement, perhaps hinting at a topical direction for the new episodes. The entire original cast is slated to return once more, though the announcement doesn’t indicate how many episodes the new season will contain, or when, precisely, it will debut. 
 
 Longtime Arrested Development fans will likely find themselves reacting to this news with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation. The fourth season of Arrested Development, which debuted in 2013, was a classic “be careful what you wish for” scenario: though the original series was clever and sharp and unfairly cut down in its prime, its revival—the first such series Netflix ever attempted, which means you can thank it for Fuller House—was a decidedly mixed bag. Arrested Development’s intricately plotted episodes and penchant for long-running, big-payoff gags made it the perfect match for the nascent binge-watch era, which is precisely why it won over so many fans after its original cancelation. But the new series faced daunting scheduling issues, thanks to the booming careers of its sprawling ensemble cast, which led to meandering episodes that focused on one character at a time rather than the ensemble pieces that had been the original show’s bread and butter. 
 
 Will a new season be able to clear a similar hurdle? Arrested’s alumni certainly haven’t gotten any less busy: Tony Hale and Jeffrey Tambor have starring roles on Veep and Transparent, respectively; Jason Bateman's making movies; Portia de Rossi has a recurring role on Scandal; Alia Shawkat is readying herself for another season of TBS’s delightful Search Party. If the new season still has trouble getting all of these people in the same studio at the same time, it seems likely that Arrested Season 5 will suffer the same creative issues that muddled Season 4. At the very least, the show seems to be aware of what prevented it from hitting again last time—its official Twitter account broke the news of Arrested’s return with a message that indicates the new season will feature the Bluths “all together. Whether they like it or not.” 
 
 Maybe, then, the show has learned from its past mistakes—and if nothing else, it’ll hopefully find a way to skewer the Donald Trump era just as mercilessly as it lampooned the presidency of George W. Bush. The rest of Hurwitz’s statement certainly seems like a step in the right direction: “I am so grateful to them and to 20th TV for making this dream of mine come true in bringing the Bluths, George Sr., Lucille and the kids; Michael, Ivanka, Don Jr., Eric, George-Michael, and who am I forgetting, oh Tiffany. Did I say Tiffany?—back to the glorious stream of life.” 
 
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 Make your predictions ||||| The Bluth family's antics are coming back to Netflix. The streaming service announced Wednesday that Arrested Development will return for its fifth season in 2018. The show is one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. 
 
 Related 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time From time-capsule sitcoms to cutting-edge Peak-TV dramas — the definitive ranking of the game-changing small-screen classics 
 
 After three critically acclaimed, but low-rated, seasons on Fox from 2004 to 2006, Mitch Hurwitz's cult comedy series was revived by Netflix in 2013, with the entire regular cast uniting for Season Four. Hurwitz and the original cast will again return for Season Five, which was delayed until all the talent involved could fit Arrested Development into their schedules, Variety reports. 
 
 "In talks with Netflix we all felt that that stories about a narcissistic, erratically behaving family in the building business — and their desperate abuses of power — are really underrepresented on TV these days,” Hurwitz said in a statement, shading the Trump clan. "I am so grateful to them and to 20th TV for making this dream of mine come true in bringing the Bluths, George Sr., Lucille and the kids; Michael, Ivanka, Don Jr., Eric, George-Michael, and who am I forgetting, oh Tiffany. Did I say Tiffany? — back to the glorious stream of life." 
 
 Ron Howard, who produces and narrates the series, added in a statement, "Whew! I can finally answer the question … Hell yes! Warming up my uncredited narrator vocal chords. Now the only thing I will have to be coy about is all the craziness the Bluths are going to face this season." 
 
 The confirmation of Arrested Development's fifth season comes less than a week after star Jason Bateman tweeted, "Look very probable I'm going to put some miles on the Stair Car this summer. Just officially signed on to more ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT today."
– Arrested Development will be back for a fifth season. Netflix, which revived the beloved sitcom for a fourth season in 2013, confirmed Wednesday that the series' fifth season will air on the streaming service in 2018. The original cast and creator Mitch Hurwitz are once again returning, Rolling Stone reports. Reaction so far is mixed; for example, Vanity Fair wonders whether a fifth season "can erase the memory of season 4."