Arrested Development Season 5: How To Watch In Australia [Updated]

Now the story of a terrible tragedy for Australians and the one service who couldn’t save us all. Netflix will not be airing Season 5 of Arrested Development in Australian on May 29. However, Foxtel has confirmed that they will be airing the first eight episodes of the new season on May 30, on the Comedy Channel. We’re a pretty switched on unit over here at Lifehacker Australia and so we’ve sorted out exactly how you can watch it, at practically the same time as the rest of Planet Earth.

Some great sleuthing over at Student Edge went and reminded all of us that, in fact, Netflix doesn’t hold the first-run rights to Arrested Development in Australia.

When questioned, a Netflix spokesperson confirmed with Lifehacker that this is most definitely true and Netflix will not release Arrested Development, in Australia, on May 29. Sadly, that was the extent of the information that they could give – so we don’t know exactly when Season 5 might land on the Australian service. The closest we’re going to get to the fifth season is if the Opera House seal runs loose in the Sydney CBD.

Foxtel currently hold the rights to air Arrested Development and so we reached out to them for comment. Today, a Foxtel spokesperson told Lifehacker that the series will begin airing on May 30 in Australia – the full statement is below:

The long-awaited fifth season of Emmy® Award and Golden Globe®-winning series Arrested Development will return to Foxtel with a special marathon event that will see the first eight episodes played back-to-back, Express from the US on Wednesday, May 30 from 5.00pm on The Comedy Channel. The series will also air weekly on The Comedy Channel on Mondays at 9.00pm from June 4.

That means if you want to catch the first half of the new season (the second half premieres later in the year), you just need to sign up to Foxtel… Yay? Nay? Good news. If you sign up for the Foxtel Now service for the first time you can get two weeks for free with all channels included (make sure you pick the POP pack, though).

So hold out until May 30, sign up and you’ll have access to the Comedy Channel to watch back-to-back-to-back-to… you get it. If it isn’t your first time, it’ll cost you $15 a month, but you can cancel anytime.

Take note: The first four episodes will be available to stream On Demand following the premiere on May 30. They will be available for seven days. Episodes five to eight will be available the week after, also for seven days. If you want to catch them all in your free trial, make sure you sign up on or after May 30.

If you’re not a foxtel user, lucky for you, we just so know there’s always money in the banana stand and how to access US Netflix in Australia: Through the wonders of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

We’ve written about this at length before. Netflix have cracked down on VPNs dramatically over the last two years, hoping they can finally stamp out users jumping international geoblocks (Narrator: They can’t). Plenty of plucky VPN providers still know how to get around the blocks.

Some of the notable options are presented here and include:

• NordVPN
• ExpressVPN
• TorGuard
• VyprVPN
• VanishedVPN

Notably, VanishedVPN — which we have covered in the past — also sell a product known as the Invizbox which acts as a mini router and is a plug-n-play option to get you connected to and easily switch between Vanished’s selection of VPN locations.

Of course, watching Arrested Development on May 29 will require you to subvert geoblocks unless an Australian distributor comes to the party and sets it all up for streaming on May 29. But you should note – and we are of the opinion, you should always leave a note – that VPN providers we’ve listed are not free. You’re going to have to shell out a tenner or more to get access on release day.

If you can hold off, go see a Star War instead – that new Solo movie comes out the week before Arrested Development was slated to return.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/02/the-five-best-vpns-for-2018/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/06/VPN-410×231.jpg” title=”Best VPN Services For 2018″ excerpt=”If there’s one basic, essential security feature that you should be using whenever you’re online – it’s a VPN. In 2017, we rounded up the best five but as our desire for increased privacy and unrestricted access on the internet grows, so do the amount of providers. It can be hard to sift through them all to find what the service you’re looking for.

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