In the 2000s, sitcoms had a renaissance. Not only was the genre the dominant force on television, but there was a great deal of innovation happening within the art form with shows like The Office, Scrubs, and How I Met Your Mother. One classic sitcom from that era was Malcolm in the Middle, which ran for seven seasons from 2000 to 2006.
There are a lot of sitcoms featuring child characters in the lead, but Malcolm in the Middle feels different from all of them. Its brand of humor was elevated by a sort of intelligence and ingenuity that you rarely get to see in any other shows aimed at kids or adults. Let us take a deeper look at what made Malcolm in the Middle stand out from the crowd with its enduring popularity.
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Malcolm in the Middle’s Challenging Premise
20th Television
As the name of the series suggests, Malcolm in the Middle tells the story of little Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), the middle child in a family with four brothers. Malcolm’s life is turned upside down when it is discovered that he has a genius-level IQ. He is forced to join the “gifted” class at his school and consequently made to feel like a social pariah.
Whereas other shows try to make their lead characters as relatable and ordinary as possible, Malcolm in the Middle goes in the opposite direction. The great tragedy of Malcolm’s life is his blinding intelligence which often stops him from being happy and prevents him from relating to other people. Such an unusual and intelligent protagonist needs unusual and intelligent problems to keep things interesting, and the show rises to the occasion with every episode.
A New Type of Sitcom Family
Sitcom families are usually highly sanitized creations. Right from the days of The Brady Bunch, you see impeccably-dressed parents living with their impeccably-dressed children in preposterously large houses, dealing with rich-people problems despite the show insisting that the characters belong to the middle class.
Intelligent Humor
Similar shows often use the license of being aimed at kids to indulge in simplistic jokes with little thought behind them. But Malcolm in the Middle is a show about a child genius, and the themes and humor of the show operate at a correspondingly elevated level. Like the many times Malcolm has engaged in a battle of wits with his teacher Mr. Herkabe (Chris Eigeman) and turned the tables on the latter using nothing but his brains.
Other times you have Malcolm’s father Hal (the great Bryan Cranston) dealing with one midlife crisis after another in the most preposterous manner, from quitting his job to start painting in the nude to building a gun that shoots bees at his enemies. These kinds of storylines are completely ludicrous but with an underlying thread of wit joining the overall narrative together.
Malcolm in the Middle Has a Compelling Cast of Characters
Malcolm in the Middle is very much an ensemble show, and each of the main characters is interesting enough to have an entire show all to themselves. There are Malcolm and his brothers, each a mad genius in their own way, from writing transcendental music to cooking Michelin Star-level food to destroying their house multiple times through their shenanigans.
Then there are Malcolm’s classmates from school with a random grab bag of neuroses that affect highly gifted minds. Malcolm’s father Hal gets to go on his own personal adventures in almost every episode. Finally, there is Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), TVs’ most fearsome mom. Her love for her family is matched only by her extreme need for control that can transcend every kind of boundary, like the time she managed to track down Reese in a hostile foreign country just so she could punish him for running off to join the army.
Exploring the Idea That Life is Unfair
Malcolm in the Middle starts with a great theme song by They Might Be Giants with the final lyrics, “Life is unfair.” This is a theme that recurs throughout the show. No matter how much effort Malcolm and the people around him put into bettering their lives, they rarely if ever manage to catch a break. While this might seem like a bleak attitude for a sitcom to take, the series proposes the idea that all one can really do is make peace with the cards you are dealt and try to make the best of your surroundings.
This philosophical thread powers much of the narrative and humor throughout the show to surprisingly poignant effect. Spending time with Malcolm and his family feels like spending time with people you know. People who have had bad luck in their lives, but who are still trying to get by as well as possible using humor and by always having each other’s back, no matter what. No wonder fans keep coming back to rewatch the tales of Malcolm and co. more than a decade after the show went off the air.
