Modern Family: Season 1

The 2009-2010 freshman class of television shows was loaded with a number of great comedies and this show was deservedly its poster child. Whenever the masses at large are raving about something being funny, I tend to become a bit of a comedy snob and turn up my nose at the content in question without even giving it the benefit of the doubt. I scoffed at The Office for two seasons before giving it a shot in college, and it turned out to be - at one point, I must stress - the funniest show on network television. I never wanted to give 30 Rock a fighting chance, but I jumped aboard last season just to bridge the gap between The Office and Always Sunny and haven't looked back ever since. My point is that I can be overly judgmental in a very premature way when it comes to popular comedies. But I know this, and I'm trying to work on it. So, last Wednesday when the second season of Modern Family began, I gave it a shot. Did I love it like the nation at large seems to? You tell me. On Saturday I bought the first season on DVD and here I am just five days later posting about the 24 episodes I haven't been able to get enough of lately. (Side note: I need to take a moment to respond to certain complaints and accusations another blogger has made regarding the pace at which I expect her to watch sitcom seasons. They're fucking sitcoms! Episodes are twenty minutes in length - you can watch a full 24-episode season of a sitcom in eight hours flat. Two weeks is plenty of time to get in eight hours of DVD watching! The only thing unreasonable is falling asleep after two episodes - forty minutes, mind you - and whining about the frustration I express at this.) Anyway, let me finally cut to the chase and describe Modern Family. It seems generic and forced to call anything a blend of two other things, but seriously, this feels like The Office with a slight Arrested Development feel. The characters are memorable and the writing is fantastic. It has a very Seinfeld-like ability to wrap episodes up with call backs to irrelevant details from earlier in the episode. There are even a few long-running gags, but I must give credit to the show for not thriving on "inside" jokes. For Arrested Development, those were both a tremendous strength and a newcomer-alienating folly. Modern Family isn't perfect; at times the jokes are obvious and every now and again a heartwarming voice over feels a little too sappy. But the biggest fault I've had with the show so far is a technical one. Like so many new era single-camera comedies, it's presented in a mockumentary format, complete with talking head interviews and blank stares into the camera. That's fine (if at least a bit tired by now), but why? What makes this family worth filming 24/7 and why is it never addressed? Furthermore, how are certain "scenes" acquired? For example, at one point, Luke (the non-Hispanic boy) crawls into a tight area underneath his house and becomes stuck. But the next shot is taken from even deeper within the crawlspace. In mockumentaries, the camera crew is part of the physical universe contained within the show, and this is evidenced every time a character looks into the camera. Are we to presume that a grown cameraman with all of his equipment went into the crawlspace before Luke did? And furthermore, without getting stuck? And that there's somehow enough light down there for adequate footage? I know I'm nitpicking, but you really need to do that in order to find anything flawed with this show. And that's a good thing! I mean, if cameraman logic is your biggest issue, you must be doing a hell of a job in all other aspects. I certainly and heavily recommend Modern Family to anyone looking for something decent on Wednesday nights. It's even a pretty easy show to jump right into, so don't worry about catching up or anything; you'll enjoy it just as much no matter what your level of familiarity is. And on that note, let's all pour one out one more time for Arrested Development.