Absolutely Fabulous

It’s hard to know what to make of Mitch Hurwitz’s career since the cancellation of Arrested Development. We all knew he wouldn’t do anything like AD again, in large part because no one will ever buy anything like AD again. (30 Rock has a somewhat similar approach and only slightly better ratings, but it does not have quite as much ironic distance as AD — no narrator — and has less complicated story structure and more straightforward jokes than AD, where the jokes often depended on our having seen not just one but multiple episodes.) Also, he gave the impression of not really wanting to continue in that vein; remember that Showtime expressed an interest in picking up AD until it became clear that Hurwitz didn’t want to do it any more. Unlike the TV-era Judd Apatow, whose cult failures just made him want to produce more cult failures, Hurwitz may not be comfortable as the flop king; he wants a hit.