Life is still unfair on the new Malcolm in the Middle reboot (streaming on Hulu and Disney+ in Canada), but it is also pretty damn funny. Do we need that now? Its April 10 premiere was the most-watched ever on both Hulu and Disney+.
The four-episode miniseries, originally pitched as a movie, reunites almost everyone from the 2000 to 2006 Fox sitcom, which lasted seven seasons. The one holdout was Erik Per Sullivan who played fourth child Dewy in the original. Look-a-like Caleb Ellsworth-Clark plays him on the new series and is only glimpsed here in the occasional Web video call.
Otherwise, they’re all back: Bryan Cranston as dad Hall, Jane Kaczmarek as mom Lois, Frankie Munis as child prodigy and now Harvard educated lawyer and food charity owner Malcolm. Justin Berfield returns as troublemaking brother Reese, and Christopher Kennedy Masterson as oldest child Francis. A new character, the family’s youngest child Kelly (Jane announced she was pregnant with this one at the end of the original series), is played by Vaughan Murrae. This studious sibling is non-binary. There was also a fifth child who was seen only as a toddler on the original. He’s been neatly shipped off with the US Coast Guard and is seen here briefly as played by Anthony Timpano.
There are other new characters as well and original creator and showrunner Linwood Boomer does a great job of adding them seamlessly into the update mix. Newcomer Keeley Karsten plays Malcolm’s high school age daughter Leah, who breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience just like her dad. Kiana Madeira plays Malcolm’s girlfriend. Old friends also get in on the fun, including David Anthony Higgins as Craig Feldspar, the ex-Lucky Aide manager who now works at the Costco-like Huge Mart.
Let’s get back to Hall and Lois. My god do these two leap back into their roles. Cranston melts down all those Emmys he won playing Walter White on Breaking Bad. Here, the now 70-year-old actor clearly is up for anything. We see him getting his entire body shaved by Lois, including the hard-to-reach undercarriage. There is a scene where Hal, completely naked and writhing on the floor, gives birth to himself. And yes, he is back doing whatever it takes to prove his love to his wife, including hilariously choreographed song and dance routines at the Huge Mart. If there is a Emmy for committing to a role, give Cranston another one.
Kaczmarek, also now 70, reminds us just how much she killed it as the supremely focused and insanely driven Lois and remains the funniest mom on TV. She’s been nominated for seven Emmys. There is justification for rebooting this series just to finally give her the damn winged lady.
advertisement
This is is what I love about these reboots. When they are done well, which they were for much of the run of The Conners, you welcome these characters you spent so much time with back as old friends. No matter how zany – and this is zany – you miss them and want more.
It helps that Malcolm was always a one-camera comedy. Rebooting a three-camera studio sitcom from the past has the baggage now of seeming a bit stilted, of being from a time that has gone by. This is a show that takes full advantage of not just breaking the fourth wall but heaping visual puns and other madness liberally into the mix. That helps with this kind of broad, free-wheeling comedy, and for my taste you don’t see enough of these kinds of shows today – because they are really hard to do right.
It also helps that original director Ken Kwapis is back behind these four new episodes. He and Boomer and the writers are not just coasting here on nostalgia. The storyline is straightforward: it is 20 years later, and Malcolm and his daughter Leah are dragged back to the parental home for their parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. Malcolm, we learn – well, he tells us directly – has not been all that forthcoming about telling Hal and Lois they have a teenage granddaughter, or much else about his life. If you watched the original series, you can’t entirely blame him.
Aside from that premise, there are some fun pot shots taken at teen behaviour and the pressures and anxieties of life in high schools today.
So, sure, life is still unfair on Malcolm in the Middle, but it is not unfair that we just got more of it. May they go on shaving Hall’s back and undercarriage four episodes at a time for several more years.
