Arrested Development Season 5 may finally be close to happening. The brilliant Mitch Hurwitz series had a short run on Fox before being cancelled—though not before winning the Best Comedy Series Emmy award. It was one of the first shows that Netflix “resurrected” with a brand new season, and thus Season 4 was born. The new season elicited a mixed reaction, largely due to its puzzle-like structure that was dictated by the busy schedules of the cast. There were only one or two days that the full cast could be assembled at the same time, so the season was broken up into bits and pieces and paired off various characters—though sometimes with actors not even in the same room, as schedule difficulties meant they had to shoot their portions at different times.

That’s been the main hurdle in getting Season 5 off the ground. This cast went on to great success following the show’s cancellation, and while they’ve all been game to return, they have prior commitments (Jeffrey Tambor leads Transparent, Tony Hale is a regular on Veep) that make the scheduling hard.

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Image via Netflix

But recently, producer Brian Grazer told Deadline that they’re finally close to a deal that would make Arrested Development Season 5 a reality.

“I think we found a way to create the compensation structure for all the actors and create a work matrix so they can still make movies and do other things and it will all integrate. So we are really close—I think within a couple of weeks at the most.”

Hurwitz previously revealed that he was deep into writing Season 5 when real life caused him to call an audible. The idea is to craft the new season in the vein of Making a Murderer, with a murder mystery at its core, but last we heard Hurwitz was waiting to see which cast members would definitely be coming back before he committed fully.

I wasn’t crazy about Season 4, but I’m definitely game to see what Hurwitz and Co. have up their sleeves. The CG elements were certainly distracting, as characters like Lucille were digitally inserted into scenes that were filmed on a different day at a different location, so let’s hope they’ve found a way to cut back on that aspect of the series. I get these actors are busy, but in comedy timing is everything, and if the show looks like the Star Wars prequels that’s a little hard to ignore.

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Image via Netflix
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Image via Netflix
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Image via Fox