Modern Family

[Updated 4/23/21 – originally posted 6/10/11 after season 2]

 I recently finished the eleventh and final season of this TV show from ABC, I was very impressed and amused by the whole thing – from start to finish.  Amidst mediocre, lackluster and dull programming half-heartedly offered to us as “entertainment”, there are still remarkable gems to be found on the “idiot tube” for those with the patience to look hard enough.

 Premise.  Three separate households, linked by a common family bond.

 Jay (Ed O’Neill), Gloria (Sofia Vergara) and their son Manny (Rico Rodriguez).   Jay is an older guy (think Al Bundy with marginally more charm) with his trophy Colombian wife Gloria and her son Manny.  Her ex-husband Javier (Benjamin Bratt) is kind of a wild stallion who periodically shows up to make Jay uneasy but ultimately shows that Jay, despite his age and conservative nature, represents a stable father figure and provider which Gloria needs for herself and Manny.  For her part, Sofia Vergara has to be, bar none, the hottest female actress on TV – Catherine Zeta-Jones dialed up a few notches in hotness.  She is constant eye candy in every scene, even her accent is delicious.  The show is worth watching for her alone.  While there is some friction, and some cross-cultural issues, this family mostly gets along pretty well, and Jay makes an honest attempt to bond with Manny, not merely tolerate him as the baggage he has to accept to sleep with Gloria. 

 Jay and Gloria managed to have their own child Joe, who is still about 5 years old when the show ends, but already shows an implausible degree of business sense, practically a Ferengi.  Gloria remains as hot in season 11 as she was in season 2.

 Phil (Ty Burrell), Claire (Julie Bowen, formerly Denise Bauer on “Boston Legal”), and their children Haley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter), and Luke (Nolan Gould).  This is the standard family unit.  Claire is Jay’s daughter; Phil’s father is played by Fred Willard.  Haley is the typical “hot but stupid” teen girl, Alex is the “smart but snotty and fairly plain” (Daria) teen girl, and Luke is hopelessly stupid.  For his part, Phil isn’t particularly bright but has NO CLUE how clueless he really is as a father; he thinks he has all the angles worked out but the results never support this assumption.  He’s the typical real estate guy who’s overly impressed with his own charm and wit, always cracking lame jokes (aka “dad jokes”), a trait he clearly picked up from his father. He has some idiotic fixation on doing magic tricks.  Claire is a decent mother but doesn’t always have all the answers herself, but at least she doesn’t seem to assume she already knows it all, unlike Phil.  Both of them give the appearance of muddling through parenthood with only the vaguest of clues but all the best intentions.

 After being involved with various different men – one played by Nathan Fillion – Haley returns to Dylan (Reid Ewing), the offbeat stoner type (though we never see him smoke).  They have twins.  By the way, Gloria came on the scene, so to speak, far too late to be Claire and Mitchell’s mother: she is Deedee, played by Shelley Long, who we might remember from “Cheers”.  Her character was a bit unhinged and killed off at some point.  By season 11 she’s actually a tree (!). 

 Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) (gay couple) and their adopted Vietnamese baby girl, Lily.  I found baby Lily to be amazingly cute.   By season 11 Lily has grown up to be an attractive teenage girl (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons), though somewhat eye-rolling and snarky – not particularly likable.  Mitchell is Jay’s son and Claire’s sister.  By now gays are sufficiently positively portrayed on network TV that we can enjoy a flamboyantly ridiculous depiction of this couple.  On “Desperate Housewives”, Bob plays the “normal” gay partner who could easily pass for straight, while Lee is the “flamer” who embodies all the stereotypes.   With Mitchell and Cameron, they BOTH illustrate the stereotypes with hilarious regularity.   I suppose they get away with it because everyone else on the show is equally lampooned.  Even beautiful Gloria makes remarks about Colombians re: drug dealers, murders, violence, etc.  The fathers attempt to do their best for her, but like the others, often fail as much through sheer misadventure rather than incompetence (Phil) or indifference.  Mitch and Claire seem to be from California, while Cam is from a farm in Missouri and often makes farm jokes.  By season 11 he’s been an assistant coach for the high school football team and manages to snag the head coach job at a university in Missouri.  I actually watched “Bad Teacher” (with Cameron Diaz) just to see Stonestreet play a straight guy, though he only appears briefly as Diaz’ character’s grumpy and unfriendly roommate. 

 The show is filmed in the familiar “mockumentary” format where the characters frequently talk directly to the audience (e.g. “The Office” and “Trailer Park Boys”).   They all share Michael Scott’s tendency to make inadvertently negative revelations they believe are positive.  The show is definitely a comedy and has as much misadventure as any other – including “Two and a Half Men”, which had previously been my standard for current TV quality.  But as entertaining as Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer have been, Sofia Vergara is certainly much more enjoyable to watch.

 From season 3 to 11, Ariel Winter managed to….develop considerably, making her competitive with Hyland, though still very much a nerd.  Luke also grew up into a teenage boy.  Almost all of the adult characters remain essentially the same throughout the series.  I found the writing to also remain consistent in nature and quality with no peak or “jumping the shark”, to borrow the Happy Days expression.