I haven't watched any of Netflix's other original series before, but I have been excitedly watching Arrested Development. I'm up to episode 5 so far, and I'm loving it (I was a fan of the show in its original run too). I watched the first 3 episodes the first night, and one episode a night since then.
My non-spoiler observations so far:
1) The plots are indeed non-linear and intertwined, as all the pre-release media coverage said. You probably could watch the episodes (at least the ones I have seen so far) in nearly any order, and the plot would make sense. Maybe you'd need to watch episode 1 first for the set-up and episode 15 last for the wrap-up, and then watch the rest in any order. (I'm watching them in order.)
2) While the plot would work, not all of the jokes would work if you played them out of order (which creator Mitch Hurwitz has been saying as the release date got nearer). A lot of the jokes depend on dramatic irony, where the set-up for the irony comes from having seen an earlier episode. Also, some of the gags are very linear, and should be watched in order to maximize their effect; for example, when they show the same scene over and over again from slightly different perspectives, building and revealing a little more of the full picture each time.
3) Having said that, I keep noticing weird things that are clearly jokes that I won't get until a later episode. I remembered and retroactively laughed at several scenes from episode 3 (Lindsay's story) while watching episode 5 (Tobias's story). So maybe, after seeing all the episodes, you really could go back and re-watch in any order to pick up on other non-linear jokes.
4) If you had never seen seasons 1-3, you would be lost at the beginning. I think that by the time you got a few episodes in, it would start making sense. There are a lot of characters to get to know. The first episode included flashbacks to season 3 to fill you in (which is good for my memory, because I last watched seasons 1-3 when they were on the air originally years ago), and the narrator clues you in from time to time when you're supposed to remember a minor character or plot point from the original series.
5) I'm concerned that with the non-linear, intertwined plots and jokes, that I will lose something if I don't watch all the episodes close to each other. We will see how it goes when my wife leaves on a business trip tomorrow and I'm on the honor system to not watch without her for a week.
6) I like the single character focused episodes. It's a different way to tell the story. I have seen shows do this before to a more limited extent. Like on The Simpsons, sometimes there's a Marge or Lisa-centric episode. Actually, come to think of it, The Simpsons episode "Trilogy of Error" already did the intertwining non-linear plots thing too. So, once again, "Simpsons Already Did it".
I have been a long-time subscriber to Netflix, both the DVD-by-mail and Internet streaming varieties, but Arrested Development is the first of their original series to get me excited (I'm a comedy person). I also like Netflix enough that I'm also a $NFLX shareholder. So for many reasons, I'm happy for Netflix this week.
