The Arrested Development
Chronology Project
The Arrested
Development Chronology Project is a personal attempt to place all the events,
dates and flashbacks from “Arrested Development” into a consecutive timeline or
history. I used the following perimeters to build this timeline:
· All the events occur on the same
airdate of the episode (or proximity of the episode) except in instances where
specific days, holidays or events are mentioned. Some episodes are placed
closer involving the same events, such as George’s escape to Reno in “Righteous
Brothers” and “The Cabin Show” or Michael and Rita’s engagement in “Mr. F” and
“The Ocean Walker.” Some reshuffling of dates has occurred to move episodes
around to accommodate holidays, such as “Afternoon Delight” which occurs the
week of Christmas.
· Some events are estimated based on
dates mentioned in dialogue; anything described as occurring a year ago from an
airdate of November 14, 2000 hence would be placed November 14, 1999.
· Several non-dateable pre-pilot events
are placed an amount of time into the past from the date of the episode.
Oscar’s “All You Need Is Smiles” song is placed as having been written in April
1980, the same month as “Whistler’s Mother” where the song is mentioned, but
before John Lennon’s death in 1980.
· Some undated events are placed as per
available info. One Bluth Foundation Dinner occurs the day after the airing of
the “shrinkage” episode of “Seinfeld.” Michael’s date with Marta 3.0 is placed
during the time Lupe wasn’t working for Lucille while another of Michael’s
flashback dates from the same episode is placed while Buster was living in the
Model Home. Some flashback events in the lives of Maeby and George Michael were
placed based on an estimation of their ages in the episodes.
· Some events are placed as per the
dates of real-world events, such as the birthdates of cast members (providing that
characters have the same ages of their characters unless otherwise noted.) The
movie date for “Predator,” starring Carl Weathers, is also used.
· All dating conventions used in
dialogue (such as “a few days ago” or “a month ago”) specifying lengths of time
are used when possible except where they contradict other events. Considering
the capacity for characters (or the narrator) to exaggerate or estimate, little
basis was used on this convention to place events except as an estimation.
· Some episodes are expanded to fill
passages of time. In “Prison Break-In,” Michael says the Bluth Foundation
Dinner is a week away, but the episode is cut as if it’s the following day.
· This timeline doesn’t include events
or dating references from the deleted scenes.
Right now, the timeline only
marginally covers part of the events of Season Four which will be added at a later
date. The Arrested Development Wikia Page, however,
has its own version of it you can find here.