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Netflix teases new Arrested Development with Easter eggs

Netflix has scattered a handful of treats for Arrested Development fans around the site, ahead of it showing the new series in May.

Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
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Katie Collins
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Those with a sweet tooth and a taste for the oddball comedy sensation Arrested Development will enjoy tucking into the Easter eggs scattered around Netflix in the lead up to the release of the latest series in May.

Easter eggs are quirks or jokes intentionally inserted by developers -- such as those found in Android software -- and have little purpose other than to amuse and ensmuggen the finder. The Arrested Development Easter eggs were initially reported by Vulture, which had noticed titles of fake films with pictures and full descriptions among Netflix's listings.

Click on one of the films and it takes you to a relevant clip in an existing episode. To check out what each of them links to, head over to Netflix (if you have an account) and look up the following titles: Wrench, Families With Low Self, Esteem Girls With Low Self Esteem: Newport Beach, Caged Wisdom: Musings From Prison and Les Cousins Dangereux.

An additional Easter egg was reported yesterday by the Verge -- if you type 'blue' into the search bar, it splodges blue handprints down the side of page. Click on the handprints and you'll be taken to the point in the episode The One Where Michael Leaves, where Michael discovers blue paint on the walls after Tobias joins the Blue Man group.

It's hard to know exactly how long the Easter eggs have been around for, or whether more will be added in the lead up to the debut of the new series (I did ask Netflix this, but I haven't heard back). It's certainly a clever way of reminding existing fans of some of the show's most rib-tickling moments after a relatively long break.

All 14 episodes of the new series will be shown exclusively on Netflix, beginning on 4 May, and presumably the streaming service is hoping the little treats it's left around the site for fans to find will help heighten interest and excitement in the lead up to the premiere. In an unusual, but very welcome move, the series will run in the US and UK concurrently, giving me hope that the days of waiting an age for a new series of a US show to row its way across the Atlantic will soon be behind us.

Bagging exclusive rights to new series of shows such as Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Hemlock Grove and House of Cards is one way Netflix is attempting to set itself apart from its main UK streaming rival Lovefilm Instant. Stats released yesterday show that choosing which of the two services to sign up to is no easy feat, as almost every film or TV show available for streaming in the UK is exclusive to one or the other, but not both.

Would you sign up to a service like Netflix or Lovefilm just to take advantage of its exclusive access to a new series? Stream your thoughts into the comments below or leave an Easter egg on our Facebook page.