Malcolm in the Middle re-watch

[dead-ced-dead]

I'm re-watching Malcolm in the Middle for the first time since I was a teenager and it may be one of my all-timer sitcoms. Unlike the animated family sitcoms that were its contemporaries (like The Simpsons or King of the Hill) it doesn't stagnate because the children age and the parents go through life changes; such is the peril of live action.

Also, amazingly, it's aged incredibly well considering it was pre-streaming. Unlike my recent re-watch of My Name is Earl which has the problem that every episode follows the formula so rigidly because they weren't meant to be binged, they were meant to be watched week after week, I never feel that way with MitM.

It's so densely layered with one main story and two sub-plots, all packed into 20 minutes. It's so tight and lean, there's not an ounce of fat in the scripts. You never feel like you're watching a formula even though you are. It's just so easy to watch a bunch of episodes in a row.

It's on 4OD, I recommend re-watching it thoroughly.

[BritishHobo]

I did a similar rewatch a few years back and was properly blown away. I'd remembered it being enjoyable as a kid's sitcom, but it's so good, so creative. As you say, it refuses to tie itself down as a static setup, and that gives the characters so much life. Despite the outward appearance of it being about a family with unruly kids, a nightmare mom and a dopey dad, I liked that under the surface they were actually quite happy and pulled together. The note that Lois and Hal have a really successful sex life always stands out to me as something most other sitcoms wouldn't have done. There's no subversion or twist. They just have a very regular and fulfilling sex life, and that's how it is.

[dead-ced-dead]

It also has a touch of the surreal and magic realism. Apart from the fourth-wall narration that's directed to the camera, it has a slight weirdness that keeps it in the realm of the unusual, which I always appreciated.

[JaDanketies]

Yeah it's very solid. I would say there's a dip in quality near the end of its run unfortunately. The episodes become a bit more fraught and dramatic. Feels like Lois and Malcolm don't share a nice word for the whole of the final series. I'd say the jumping the shark moment was when they

Spoiler alert

went to Burning Man and Malcolm lost his virginity with an older hippie woman who didn't want anything to do with him immediately afterwards

[close]

, but it's not the most dramatic shark-jump in TV history and it's still very watchable right up to the end, if not quite as good as the early seasons.

Spoiler alert

Piama

[close]

is also noticeable by her absence.

One thing that I noticed a lot more as an adult is how rarely the whole family is in the same room together. It feels like Francis was created as a character that they could cut out if they needed to reduce running-time.

[frajer]

Absolutely love it. Grew up in a family of 7 with sod-all money and Malcolm in the Middle was one of the few bits of 90s telly that felt recognisable and reflected the warm chaos of our household.

Started watching them again last year on All4 and agree with everyone's thoughts here, it was great to see how well they held up.

[BritishHobo]

Yeah it's very solid. I would say there's a dip in quality near the end of its run unfortunately. The episodes become a bit more fraught and dramatic. Feels like Lois and Malcolm don't share a nice word for the whole of the final series. I'd say the jumping the shark moment was when they

Spoiler alert

went to Burning Man and Malcolm lost his virginity with an older hippie woman who didn't want anything to do with him immediately afterwards

[close]

, but it's not the most dramatic shark-jump in TV history and it's still very watchable right up to the end, if not quite as good as the early seasons.

Spoiler alert

Piama

[close]

is also noticeable by her absence.

One thing that I noticed a lot more as an adult is how rarely the whole family is in the same room together. It feels like Francis was created as a character that they could cut out if they needed to reduce running-time.

I remember the one episode that stood out to me as unexpectedly full of anger was 'Hal's Christmas Gift', with

Spoiler alert

Malcolm having the secret credit card, and everyone being furious with him.

[close]

Also has Francis

Spoiler alert

getting fired from the ranch, which was the beginning of the undoing of all the great development that character had had over the years.

[close]

[Lemming]

It's crazy, especially in the earliest series, to see how convincing the child actors are. Dewey especially is genuinely fucking creepy in all the right ways, absolutely powerhouse performance by the actor.

Something about the Francis plots always appealed to me when I was really young. Inspiring, somehow - his life was shit, but he was relatively free, and at least his life was various different exciting and unique shades of shit, rather than the ongoing drawn-out hell that the rest of the family were living through with work and school.

Oh also I unironically like the theme song. I get why people consider Flansburgh's input in TMBG to be weaker than Linnell's, but come on, that song is sick even if it's just basically one phrase repeated.

[Gulftastic]

I never saw it a kids' sitcom, just a bloody good one. I've always been a fan and haven't really ever stopped watching it, so there was never a question of it holding up.

Many, many fantastic bits, but this might be the best visual gag ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYng9T8EpS0

[AsparagusTrevor]

Many, many fantastic bits, but this might be the best visual gag ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYng9T8EpS0

One of those situations where you know exactly what it's gonna be before clicking. Such a brilliant gag.

[druss]

I laughed at this moment more than any other in the entire run. This short clip lacks the full context but it's still great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdiU4DvfXWc

[Lungpuddle]

General audiences seem tot hink that Hal is the standout, and while that's not unfair, I think Reese is the best. He's a bully, yes, but Justin Berfield's performance is so fantastic that I still feel bad when his shitty schemes blow up in his face. His ability to go, in one scene, from a full on, nasty argument with Malcolm straight to a heartbreaking 'Mom says you're allowed to talk about that' in the second season is amazing. There is a period in the show, near the middle, where I find Dewey nothing more than annoying but in the earlier seasons I agree with Lemming. It's a little strange that Bryan Crantson is the only one who went on to huge fame. All of the cast certainly had the talent. Did the rest of them retire from acting? I've heard about Frankie Muniz's health problems, a real shame.

I really hated Francis' situation in season 3, though.

The theme song, like everything Flansburgh does, is terrific. I remember from decades ago, someone on the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup (I think it was there, anyway) taking Linnell at face value at the Grammys when he said something along the lines of "I wrote Ana Ng, Birdhouse in Your Soul and we win for this?!" Bit odd, a TMBG fan not understanding witty irony. I may be missing vital context due to the sands of time drawing rapidly to a close. Oh well, life is unfair.

I laughed at this moment more than any other in the entire run. This short clip lacks the full context but it's still great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdiU4DvfXWc

Fuck, this show was so great.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I'm a big fan too, and though the seventh season was patchy I still think it went out strongly. This clip with Dewey and the class hamster always springs to mind when I think about the best bits, though annoyingly it doesn't feature the hamster's final appearance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb4wRgaBhB0

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Did the rest of them retire from acting?

As far as I know, Justin Berfield and Erik Per Sullivan (Reese and Dewey) did retire from acting after Malcolm.

I think of Malcolm in the Middle as the spiritual successor to The Simpsons. You have the bratty oldest sibling(s), the gifted middle child, the strange younger child, and the bumbling dad, but instead of the stay-at-home mom who is occasionally irritated and disappointed with her family, you have the working mom who has to rule the household with an iron fist because otherwise the kids will set themselves on fire. The family's poverty, which was only occasionally nodded at in The Simpsons, was front and centre. Malcolm's a smart, academic kid but he's certainly not "the good one", always joining in with his brothers' antics, whereas Bart is "the bad one" and Lisa is "the good one". They also made a good choice to end it with Malcolm graduating high school, rather than going on like Modern Family till all the kids were in college or had graduated but are all still hanging around the house for some reason.

I would dearly love a one-off reunion with Governor Malcom [car alarm going off] gearing up for his 2024 presidential bid.

[Ornlu]

It's firmly in my top three comedy shows ever. Reese is also one of my favourites.

"Kid, I'm a Zoo Clown. Now buy a giraffe, or go to hell."

[Gulftastic]

After struggling for a few years, I reckon Reese would appear on a competitive cooking show and end up as a star of his own reality programme.

[Icehaven]

I never really got into it when it was first on, although I watched it a bit, but I've been watching the recent repeats on E4 and enjoying it far more. Weirdly because the 90s/early 2000s aesthetic has come back in relatively recently it doesn't seem half as dated now as it would have done 5-10 years ago.

[willbo]

whenever I think of MitM I always think of the Burning Man episode. For some reason it seems like the kind of ep only this show could do. I always used to find the stuff with Francis having bad feelings/bad memories toward his family kind of unsettling, but I'm not sure how it would feel to me now watching it when older. I only saw the final season on digital TV repeats in the late 00s and before that I haven't seen it since the 90s.

[The Lurker]

I rewatched it on All4 not too long ago. Honestly forget how good it was and it's aged well too. Brilliant cast.

All4 do cut out a few bits, like

As far as I know, Justin Berfield and Erik Per Sullivan (Reese and Dewey) did retire from acting after Malcolm.

Berfield got himself a cushy job with a big record label. As for Dewey, he shuns the limelight and doesn't turn up to the reunions either - apparently he lives abroad.

[dead-ced-dead]

Speaking of tightness and efficiency in their scripts. I just re-watched season 2 episode 1: Traffic Jam and it occured to me that in a 25ish page screenplay, there were six plot lines, and at no point did it feel like it was skirting or rushing.

There's at least three plot lines per episode. It's just so tight.

[dissolute ocelot]

I've watched quite a bit recently. Just to echo what other people said, it seemed to operate on a whole other level to most sitcoms, based on the complexities of the plot, the amazing physical comedy and general destructiveness, the way they managed to integrate Francis despite him being far away, the sheer pace and quantity of jokes (and its lack of lazy jokes like catchphrases). I guess the fact that it presumably was shot more like a single-camera drama than a studio sitcom allowed that freedom and invention (and often great camerawork), but I've no idea how they did it. And also amazing how it often managed all these plots with comparatively few characters (unlike The Simpsons): you could have a plot that was essentially just Hal or Dewey being silly, but because of the acting and writing it'd be great.

[popcorn]

A wonderful show. The firework gag strikes me as a joke that could only work in live action.

[Stonefish]

This isn't a show it would have occurred to me to rewatch but I always remember enjoying the episodes I did see. Will give it a whirl.

[Kelvin]

I also rewatched this very recently and reached the decision I like it even more than classic era Simpsons - although maybe that's not a fair comparison, as I've seen The Simpsons far more and can't be surprised by it anymore. In any case, I was howling with laughter at bits of MitM that I'd either not seen before or couldn't remember. 

I'll also echo the comments above that Reece was the standout on this viewing. It would have been so easy to fuck it up and make him completely unlikeable, but his loyalty, his gullibility, his obvious vulnerability, and his sheer inventiveness, all provide just enough pathos to balance out his unrelenting cuntiness. In fact, I really like that all four of the kids get to excel at something - Dewey with manipulation, Reece with destruction, Malcolm with his schemes, and Francis with his better understanding of Lois and Hal - that they know how to work together when trying to achieve a greater goal. There's a nice bit where they're all arguing about the prospect of the new baby, and then suddenly realise it might be another brother and immediately like the idea. For me, it's that bond between the brothers, and also between Hal and Lois, that really ties it all together.

It also has some of the funniest visual gags of any live action sitcom I've seen. Yes, the fireworks scene is great, but it's only one of many, many great "cartoony" visuals like that.

The very start of this, for example:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-9Aygwp_B0

Or the final ten seconds of this one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXvbkIWl-Vg

[dead-ced-dead]

For me, it's that bond between the brothers, and also between Hal and Lois, that really ties it all together.

There's something really moving and realistic (despite the surreal and cartoony elements) about how the family stick together. It's not in a sickly-sweet "hugging and learning" way like a lot of sitcoms, it's something more chaotic and recognisable.

[kalowski]

The roller skating section is utterly wonderful, from the early Funkytown lessons, through the Queen dance to the hockey game at the end.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I love the ending of the family reunion episode, where all four boys march out to the lawn, get on the golf cart the rest of the family bought for Hal's father's birthday, and proceed to drive it over a catered dinner and into a swimming pool. And they all just sit there smiling in satisfaction as they sink. Because even though they're often at loggerheads with Lois, nobody, nobody, gets to make her cry.

[petril]

[tag]brief Chris Benoit appearances[/tag]

[Noodle Lizard]

It's great. Won't hear a bad word said about it.

I introduced it to my 9-year-old stepson a year or so ago and he's just as in love with it as I was when I was when it aired (and he's able to watch whichever episode whenever he wants on Hulu, the lucky sod).

It's got a perennial "young boy" appeal to it, and I'm now better able to appreciate the parental subplots too. It stands the test of time, for sure. As someone else mentioned, it's pretty much the polar opposite of any aspirational TV/sitcoms we had at the time. All of its main characters are unpopular losers in their own way. Even Malcolm, the "gifted and brilliant" one ends up being a janitor - that whole final conversation with his mum might have been a bit rushed, but I think it taps into some important wisdom that had been underscoring the whole show. Despite its irreverence, it's one of the more grounded and relatable sitcoms we were given.

(To say one bad word, I think they brought in Jamie far too soon. So many episodes after that proved that they hadn't creatively deteriorated to the point where they needed to draft in a new sidekick, so it feels as though he's mostly inconsequential set-dressing for the remainder of the series.)

[Kelvin]

There's something really moving and realistic (despite the surreal and cartoony elements) about how the family stick together. It's not in a sickly-sweet "hugging and learning" way like a lot of sitcoms, it's something more chaotic and recognisable.

Yeah, it was never a sentimental show, but you never doubted they all had each other's backs when it really came to it. There's also a nice moment in one of the later series where Lois tells Francis that she knows she fucked up as a mother to him and she doesn't have any excuses. Usually in a sitcom like MitM, that moment would either feel out of place and manipulative, or they'd simply undercut it with a silly joke straight afterwards. Instead, Francis freaks out because it's exactly what he's always wanted to hear, but now that he has, it hasn't helped at all. It very deftly manages to balance a moment of sincerity with the more cynical tone of the show. In fact, despite finding the Francis plots a bit too detached from everything else at times, I always found that relationship between Lois and Francis to be one of the most interesting.     

[Noodle Lizard]

Must give some love to some of the recurring characters like Craig Feldspar and Otto. Stevie's dad, Abe, as well. Too many to mention, really.