10 Cult TV Shows Your Friends Bang On About (But You've Not Seen Yet)

4. Arrested Development

Arrested Development never took the easy road. It was deliberately inaccessible to new viewers dropping in halfway through, with long running, self referential gags, avoiding using a canned laugh track and utilising wordplay constantly. It flouted having a cast of likeable characters, instead putting the self-centred and dysfunctional Bluth family at centre stage.

All this meant the show never found a sizeable audience on Fox, and despite widespread critical acclaim, Arrested Development was canned after three seasons. Rumours rumbled on for years about the show's resurrection, and there was enough of a following for Netflix to produce a fourth season in 2013 (and maybe a fifth season... eventually).

Once you're in on the gag, Arrested Development proves to be one of the funniest sitcoms ever made. Not since the days of Frasier, Seinfeld or the early years of The Simpsons had audiences been treated to writing so witty, tightly constructed and outright funny as Arrested Development.

So what if the fourth season on Netflix was a bit rubbish? The first three seasons were comedic perfection, and if you do watch it, you can take away one very important lesson: there's always money in the banana stand. (It'll make sense when you watch, I promise.)