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'Arrested Development' fan re-edits Season 4 in new order

A serious aficionado takes apart the entire season and puts it back together again in "chronological order." Kabir Akhtar, lead editor of the show, doesn't have any qualms with this.

Dara Kerr Former senior reporter
Dara Kerr was a senior reporter for CNET covering the on-demand economy and tech culture. She grew up in Colorado, went to school in New York City and can never remember how to pronounce gif.
Dara Kerr
2 min read
Screenshot by Dara Kerr/CNET

With the release of 15 new episodes of "Arrested Development" on Netflix, one of the show's fans has taken it upon himself to re-edit the entire season in what he calls "chronological order." He has released downloadable episodes of his version of the show on Reddit via Mega.

Going by the name morphinapg, this fan took apart all the episodes and then put them back together again for a different interpretation of Season 4. He added new titles, like "Take to the Sea," "Get Away, Getaway," and "The Fantastic Four," along with different summaries for each episode.

"I did as much as I could to make these feel like real episodes. I made sure to separate the episode by story lines, rather than looking for specific times," morphinapg wrote in his Reddit post. "I tried to keep as much original editing as possible, unless chronology required a split."

Morphinapg's re-edit has gained some traction on Reddit, with 90 comments as of this writing. Many of the commenters seem to appreciate and enjoy the edit. One person asked morphinapg if he thinks it helped him understand the show's story line and morphinapg makes it clear his re-edit is an homage to the show's original edit.

"I think it helps to understand the story," morphinapg wrote. "I still suggest watching it in the original order the first time to get the proper order of reveals. I tried to edit it in a way to avoid spoiling some surprises."

When the new season of "Arrested Development" was first announced, the idea was that the episodes could be watched in any order. The episodes would be of varying lengths and star different actors. With the final edit of the season, however, the show's editors ultimately decided to put the show into 15 numbered, sequential episodes (that weren't, however, in chronological order).

The lead editor of Season 4, Kabir Akhtar, did an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit on Tuesday to talk about what it was like editing the show. One user asked Akhtar if he planned on watching morphinapg's edit of the season and Akhtar said yes.

"I'd like to check it out -- really interested to see how they all look when put back together," Akhtar said. "The penthouse scene, for example, was originally shot and cut as one giant scene.... Once it was distributed to different episodes, as it had always been intended, each part changed separately, so I never got to watch it all together again in its finished form. I tried to make sure that it could still be reconnected, though, so I'm curious to check this out."

Correction, July 23 at 11:05 a.m. PT: The original version of this post misspelled Kabir Akhtar's name.