A satire of the American white middle class/nouveau riche, with the likes of Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, and Will Arnet at the fore, with comedy equally built around improvisation and dry sense of humour. Sounds great on paper, but fails to really take off. Don't get me wrong, the characters are fun and the performances thoroughly enjoyable. They've created a great cast of misfits that give them ample excuse for boundary-pushing parody and dark humour, both of which are often genuinely funny. It's just rarely laugh-out-loud funny, relying more on cringe humour and absurdism, though the occasional one-liner does land well.
The underlying plot is similar. The Bluth family are a great mix of characters and the setup – with Michael living in a model home whilst his father is sent to prison, causing their fortune to be frozen and forcing the various individuals to deal with reality for the first time – is a solid premise. Again, it leads to plenty off-the-wall yet grounded mishaps and anchoring it all around the "normal" son, Michael, lets the audience in on the humour cleverly.
Similarly, the consistent ability for the family to skip over the reality of their situation, ignore Micheal, or generally live in their own little fantasy bubbles is fun. They do it well. Even the weirder stuff, like George Michale's crush on his cousin, Maeby (such a good name), or the adoption of Annyong is well written and humorous. I don't know, maybe I'm just not the right audience. I enjoyed the show, but I still feel utterly ambivalent towards it.