Hoepfully, we’ve all become better people than we were at the turn of the century. Personally, I may still be without spouse or child, but there’s a lot less of me to love or hate, and I’d like to believe there’s more of y’all that are inclined toward the former.
In the case of one Malcolm Wilkerson/Nolastname (at least that’s what Wikipedia offers up), he’s pretty damn adamant that’s the case. And in the first minutes of the miniseries reboot of his early 2000s comedy MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE we learn that the secret to his sanity is staying as far away from the dysfuctional and ever-growing family that he grew up in. Now pushing 40, he’s a devoted single father dedicated to his charity work and has a lovely girlfriend–a shadow of the angst-ridden and oft-times manic teenager that was the focus of the original series that proved to be a turning point for FOX back in the day. Indeed, a similarly screwed up TV clan with an actual last name, the Bundys, were what got the network launched successfully, and after that an animated version named THE SIMPSONS took them to the ratings stratosphere. But in the decade-plus since MARRIED…WITH CHILDREN launched FOX was unable to mount anything close to a successful live-action broad-appeal half-hour comedy. MALCOLM earned a coveted place in the Sunday night lineup that theretofore and heretofore was dominated (literally) by two-dimensional non-humans. 
Fresh off the success of rebooting one of those ANIMATION DOMINATION elements, KING OF THE HILL, Hulu has decided once again to dip into the 20th TV IP and bring us up to speed with Malcolm and his family. And when the patriarch is played by someone who has evolved into arguably one of streaming’s most bankable actors like Bryan Cranston, who has more than warm fuzzy feelings about the experience, they were all the more motivated to help him drag Frankie Muniz, who emerged as a teen superstar playing Malcolm, practically kicking and screaming back from the far less challenging world of race car driving he now is a part of, and the newly married Jane Kaczmarek back from seeming retirement in Wisconsin to play his back-shaving wife. Not to mention pretty much the entire supporting cast (save for the firmly retired child actor Erik Per Sullivan, who played the petulant next-youngest brother Dewey) who all argubaly needed the paycheck.
But like KING and similar attempts to catch Gen X up with their childhood favorites that continue to crop up on streamers in perpetual need for content they think they don’t need to promote (judging certainly by how many executives with those skill sets have been fired of late), the MALCOLM revisit, tellingly subtitled LIFE’S STILL UNFAIR, is a mere four half-hour-ish episodes. Extremely bingable, even for non-Gen Xers. At one time this would have been merely a TV movie, just like similarly silly shows of different eras like GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, GREEN ACRES and THE BRADY BUNCH were. But as the seasoned and astute Robert Lloyd noted in his LOS ANGELES TIMES review that dropped concurrent with LIFE’S STILL UNFAIR yesterday, that’s not how it works these days:
(T)he comeback is subdivided instead into 30-minute-long quarters, giving them a certain heft, whereas a “TV movie” might have felt like a throwaway, an afterthought. These four new episodes feel structurally tethered to the mothership. As before, it’s a television show. Take it, and celebrate it, as such.
The premise, reportedly one that had been noodled around for years by both Cranston and series creator Linwood Boomer (himself a veteran of a soon-to-be-rebooted LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE) revolves around Hal and Lois’ 40th anniversary celebration, and it’s a perfect staging area for hijinks to once again ensue. Some revolve around the show’s new characters–Malcolm’s aforementioned daughter Leah, who Lloyd notes is similarly smart, beloved, (and) socially isolated …”kind of a trophy I won in college for attending my first kegger” and his youngest sibling who were previously only noted as a surprise pregnancy on the series’ 2006 finale. Originally referenced as the first girl in the clan, Kelly has matured into a non-binary college student (played authentically by one Vaughan Murrae) that proves to be a formidable foil to troublemaking older son Reese, who like far too many of his generation are back at home after a series of failed marriages and jobs. Eldest son Francis is back as well, holing up in the garage with his wife and kids, while the equally aforementioned Dewey merely turns up on FaceTime, far too busy with a successful musical career to schlep back for the festivities. A nice counterpart to the once-youngest son Jamie, apparently dedicated or deluded enough to go AWOL from his Coast Guard stint to show up to the party still in uniform.
If this all sounds like how Disney would give notes to a purpotedly family appeal comedy, you’re right. Did I also mention that Malcolm’s girlfriend and Francis’ wife are both people of color? And before anyone starts to get their dander up about being against me being a hater of representation let me remind them that FOX’s only other successful live-action comedies between MARRIED and MALCOLM were shows like MARTIN, LIVING SINGLE and ROC. Their audiences didn’t statistically overlap with those Sunday night shows then and they sure don’t now. That’s facts, Jack. A show with a FOX pedigree that made it to 151 episodes that got along just fine without them didn’t need them grafted onto this version and frankly added little to this effort.
As was the case with the OG version, it’s a tour de force for Cranston, whose penchant for physical comedy and self-abuse reaches new heights in the third episode after he accidentally swallows an entire plate of microdoses (kinda ironic for a guy now more familiar for his association with meth). He thankfully gets the majority of screen time in that installment and provides the manic energy and cartoon-like humor that complimented the Simpsons and eventually the Griffins and Smiths so seamlessly. The actual anniversary party that serves as the coda provides some eventual resolution and more than a few sappy moments that I suspect many devoted fans might find satisfying but at least I dismissed as disappointing.
Hulu is doing their part to give this enough attention to at least make it look like they think more MALCOLM might be forthcoming–Cranston in particular has been omnipresent with promotion. But Lord knows he doesn’t need the work and it sure seems Muniz and Kaczmarek have moved on in their lives. I certainly have, and perhaps you should too as well. There’s just not enough here to suggest either demand nor curiosity for something beyond this, and given how unsuccessful the response to the show’s reruns were (and, from what data Hulu was willing to offer, still are), I strongly suspect the results of what LIFE’S STILL UNFAIR will deliver will be little more than, well, middling. You gotta do more to evolve yourself over time than just provide optics. Trust me, I know.
Until next time…