For many years I was averse to American sitcoms, favouring instead the six episode per series joy that came from such classic British humour as Fawlty Towers or the Office. Then on an offchance I was leant the first series of Arrested Development and suddenly my comedy watching world was changed.

The premise is that Michael Bluth must hold his degenerate wealthy family together whilst his father, the business patriarch, is in jail. Though a continuing story eveolves throughout both the season and the whole series each episode forms a clip of the family's eccentric yet hilarious lives.

In a sense, Michael is the straight figure surrounded by siblings, parents and in-laws who are useless, dreamers, layabouts, IT girls etc all the while trying to raise his 13 year old son singlehandedly (a fine performance by Michael Cera). However, what breaks the mould here is that even Michael has his unfortunate comic side and does not fall into the nagging serious role he could easily become.

Rather than being annoying or irritating, as a rich LA family may seem to an un-empathetic British audience, the family have a huge amount of loveable charm and so even within their deviousness and selfishness you grow, as a viewer to love them. Though each of the family members are hilarious for their quirks (Gob, Buster and Tobias being the obvious three to mention) the way each episode is told, edited and narrated by Ron Howard adds an increased depth.