Arrested Development returns with all-new episodes on (drum-roll please) May 26, 2013.

Netflix issued a press release on Thursday expressing the long-awaited news. In addition to announcing the release date, the streaming company increased the episode order to a grand total of 15, way up from the originally planned 10 installments. Just like it did with its last premiere of original programming in House of Cards, Netflix will make all 15 episodes of Arrested Development available at the same time precisely at 12:01AM PDT on Sunday, May 26. Take note: the new season premieres Memorial Day weekend so fans will have plenty of time to marathon it all before the work week/school resumes on Tuesday.

Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix: ”Arrested Development is now widely viewed as one of the top TV comedies of all time and Mitch Hurwitz is bringing it to Netflix in a brand new way, crafted for the on-demand generation that has come to discover the show in the years since it last appeared on TV. The highly anticipated return of this show is sure to make history all over again.”

Series creator and executive producer Mitch Hurwitz: ”Ted said that? Wow. Well don’t print this obviously, but he’s going to be immensely disappointed. In truth we are doing something very ambitious that can only be done with Netflix as partners and on their platform. Finally my simple wish for the show is coming true: that it be broadcast every second around the clock to every television, computer or mobile device in existence.”

In case you didn’t know… Arrested Development centers around Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) and his eccentric family comprised of his son George Michael (Michael Cera), his father George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), his mother Lucille (Jessica Walter), his brothers George Oscar Bluth II (Will Arnett), Buster Bluth (Tony Hale) and sister Lindsay Funke (Portia de Rossi), and Lindsay’s husband Tobias (David Cross) and their daughter Maeby (Alia Shawkat). With the new episodes, each installment is dedicated to a different character’s point of view. And all of it is a major set up for a feature length film which is still in the works.

I don’t have a trailer for you yet (there may never be one since Hurwitz is keeping such a tight lid on the plotlines), but you can eye the first promotional poster above. I imagine the entire Bluth clan locked inside that bright orange shipping container with Gob trying his mightiest to bust them all out. It reads, “The Final Countdown Begins.” Celebrate with an appropriate scene after the break. (Click here for more…)

Hannibal is coming to television this spring. NBC had ordered the serialized adaptation of the classic tale about Dr. Hannibal Lector (famously played by Anthony Hopkins in 1991′s Silence of the Lambs, originating in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon) last May and has since been keeping it warm on the bench. With midseason bust Do No Harm dead and gone, the Peacock’s schedule suddenly has a vacant Thursday at 10PM slot that’s begging to be filled. On April 4 Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale) will play the role of the mad serial killer and he’ll unleash his bag of mind tricks onto a gifted criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). Laurence Fishburne and Caroline Dhavernas also star. Hannibal is from Bryan Fuller, the man behind such visionary treats as Pushing Daisies and Heroes.

With FOX’s The Following gaining a cult of its very own, is there room for another, more familiar serial killer drama on network TV? The 30-second spot embedded above even evokes some of the Ryan Hardy/Joe Carroll back-and-forth that has come to pass on Kevin Williamson’s thriller. And yet it’s dark and just intriguing enough to warrant anticipation for Hannibal‘s premiere. Share your take in the comment section below. After the break you’ll find creepy yet tantalizing key art featuring Mikkelsen as Lector at the dinner table. Who’s hungry?

Update: There’s a new full-length 2-minute trailer now available for your viewing pleasure. Watch it after the break.

Update 2: A couple more new clips are posted after the break. (Click here for more…)

Mad Men returns Sunday, April 7. There it is. The sixth season premiere is two hours in length, written by series creator Matthew Weiner and directed by executive producer Scott Hornbacher. The two-hour “movie” airs at 9PM on AMC. Also made public is that the second episode, which will air in Mad Men‘s regular 10PM slot, is written by Weiner and Matthew Igla and directed by star John Hamm. This marks Hamm’s second time helming an episode; he previously served double-duty on season five’s “Tea Leaves.”

In an interview with EW, Weiner briefly spoke about the highly anticipated premiere: “If you like the show, there’s a good chance you’ll like the premiere…It is different than last year’s in a sense that it was my idea and I was just trying to give bang for a buck to an audience that I didn’t want to lose because we’d been away for so long. This year it’s really constructed like a film. It is its own story and hopefully it foreshadows the rest of the season.”

When asked when exactly the new season will pick up following Don’s apparent flirtation with deviating outside his marriage, Weiner was typically coy with the NYT: “It will advance in time, as it does. I can’t say how much or how little. We’re coming off a period in Don’s life where he’s trying to normalize, and trying to have this relationship – a real relationship with this woman that he fell in love with. She expressed her desires, and that was a surprise for him. On this show, it’s a very rich, full orchestra, and we like to follow what is the next stage in these people’s lives.”

Check out new season 6 cast photos provided by AMC in the gallery below.

Could House of Cards be a game-changer in terms of original content distribution? That’s where we last left off when Netflix announced it would be exclusively streaming a new show from executive producer David Fincher (The Social Network) and Kevin Spacey. The streaming giant released a trailer for the “wicked political drama [that] penetrates the shadowy world of greed, sex, and corruption in modern D.C.” Kevin Spacey stars as Congressman Francis Underwood, his wife Claire is played by Robin Wright, and together they “stop at nothing to conquer everything.” Kate Mara (American Horror Story) and Corey Stoll co-star.

Production value looks on-par with the best premium cable giants like HBO and Showtime have to offer. Will it attract the same kind of audiences Game of Thrones and Homeland score? We’ll find out shortly after House of Cards premieres on Netflix February 1. Just like the streaming company is doing with new episodes Arrested Development, all thirteen episodes of House of Cards will be made available on day one. No matter its performance, Netflix is committed to two 13-episode seasons of the politically-driven drama.

As we inch closer to fall and Halloween, you can sense the return of Ryan Murphy’s spooktacular inventive anthology series American Horror Story. Over the course of the last few weeks, FX has dropped clues for fans to watch and dissect. The first three can be viewed here, and the rest of them have been neatly posted to AHS‘ official Facebook page. The most intriguing of the bunch include two new trailers introducing the members of Asylum and they are Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Lily Rabe, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters and newcomers Adam Levine, Chloë Sevigny, Joseph Fiennes, and James Cromwell. Other new players not featured in the trailers are Jenna Dewan and Clea Duvall. Watch an introductory trailer above and an even insaner one after the break; they both play in front of an AHS theme-infused rendition of the famous song “Que Sera Sera.”

Below, flip through four creepy pieces of key art; I wouldn’t recommend peeking before bedtime.

AHS: Asylum premieres October 17 at 10PM on FX.

(Click here for more…)

Game of Thrones season two just ended last month so what better way to bide your time than by marking your calendars with the season three premiere date. Ready? Here it is: March 31, 2013.

Other than announcing this special day, the Game of Thrones panel at Comic Con moderated by author George R.R. Martin included a five-and-a-half minute recap of the epic second season and a brief introduction to (a whopping) 14 new characters we will be forced to know next season. The former video is embedded above while the latter one hangs after the break. Under that video there’s a listing of all the new characters explaining how they’re each tied to the ones we already know. (Click here for more…)

Syfy’s dark reimagining of the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood is ready for its televised debut.  Red: Werewolf Hunter (yep, the subtitle is new) will premiere during during Syfy’s “31 Days of Halloween” event on Saturday, October 30 at 9:00PM ET.  We’ve been anticipating this day since last March when news broke that Felicia Day (The Guild, Dr. Horrible) would star as a gun-toting, werewolf-hunting descendant.  If you missed the trailer, check it out and then mark your calendars.  This is going to be a chilling, fun ride.

[Via futoncritic]

I have not anticipated the premiere of a new fall TV series like this in quite some time.  The Walking Dead, the famed comic book series from Robert Kirkman that follows a band of survivors in a zombie-infested world, is being adapted to the small screen with executive producer/director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) at the helm.  I have attempted to hook you in from the start–reporting cast additions, production stills, and behind-the-scenes looks from the set.  Today the four-and-a-half minute trailer, originally screened at Comic Con in July, has hit the ‘Net and boy does it impress.  If nothing caught your attention in the past surrounding the development of the AMC series, this will.  In it you will meet Rick Grimes, a man who gets shots and wakes up after a prolonged period of time in a hospital to find his home infiltrated by a hoard of flesh-hungry zombies.  Said zombies look horrifyingly spectacular thanks to makeup/special FX extraordinaire Greg Nicotero.  I implore you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the first in-depth peek at The Walking Dead.

We’ve been told that The Walking Dead would premiere in October sometime during AMC’s Fearfest schedule, which will include 14 consecutive days of horror-themed programming.  Today THR reports that the zombie series will premiere on Halloween night, Sunday October 31 at 10:00PM ET.  If you’re planning on spending the night trick-or-treating, don’t forget to set your DVR!  The pilot episode, written and directed by Darabont, will run 90 minutes long.

[Via THR]

The seventh season of Entourage is set to hit the airwaves this summer on June 27.  It will air at 10:30PM on HBO, joining Hung (season 2), True Blood (season 3), and newcomer Treme on Sunday nights.  The teaser trailer (embedded after the break) asks “Once you have it all…what’s next?”  The poster answers, “Enjoy the ride.”  Last time we saw the gang, Ari bought out Terrance’s agency, Vince, Drama, and Turtle were setting off for Rome to watch Vince start a new film, and E successfully proposed to Sloan.  Looking forward to see where things go next.

Update: Look after the break for an extended trailer with season 7 footage included.

[Via Facebook] (Click here for more…)