Malcolm in the Middle - Why nobody is speaking about it?

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Iron Jaguar said:
I always felt he never got the recognition he deserved for his work on MiTM, though. He was absolutely brilliant as Hal.
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Cranston has a serious love/hate relationship with MITM. He loved his costars and the fact that it made him a star and financially set for life, but absolutely fucking hated how it typecasted him as a idiot savant type dad, which is why he dropped off the face of the Earth between the end of Malcolm and the launching of Breaking Bad. He only got offered roles playing similar characters like Hal and no serious drama roles, which was a big deal to Cranston who always thought of himself as an artiste! type actor and only took the gig playing Hal on MitM because he was a struggling actor and thought the show would only last a year or two, so he could then resume trying to land a big dramatic role to make him famous.
 
It was all but confirmed there was tranny shit in it, but it looks like they decided to drop it.

Malcolm married an ugly mutt.

All the characters seem poorly done. None of them lookto have grown at all, they're just older looking. It's really weird to watch a grown man look into the camera like he's a 10 year old boy talking to an adult. It doesn't have legs. It's a short nostalgia check for the cash and everyone will forget it exists as soon as it ends.
 
Kofi Drinka said:
It's a short nostalgia check for the cash and everyone will forget it exists as soon as it ends.
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That's fine, I guess. I remember as a kid they would do TV movie reunions for old boomer TV shows like Andy Griffin, I Dream of Jeannie, Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, etc. People seemed to like them.

I don't know why that mostly stopped with the Boomers. I'd have liked to see some of the shows I grew up with have a reunion special, especially the ones that had shitty endings or non-endings.
 
MirrorNoir said:
Cranston has a serious love/hate relationship with MITM. He loved his costars and the fact that it made him a star and financially set for life, but absolutely fucking hated how it typecasted him as a idiot savant type dad, which is why he dropped off the face of the Earth between the end of Malcolm and the launching of Breaking Bad. He only got offered roles playing similar characters like Hal and no serious drama roles, which was a big deal to Cranston who always thought of himself as an artiste! type actor and only took the gig playing Hal on MitM because he was a struggling actor and thought the show would only last a year or two, so he could then resume trying to land a big dramatic role to make him famous.
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Even before Malcolm he wasn't getting dramas. Before Malcolm he was on Seinfeld and The King of Queens. He didn't really have that big of a career before, during or even immediately after Malcolm. His only real major dramatic roles was his small part in Saving Private Ryan and that famous episode of The X-Files. That X-Files role by the way was the entire reason why he ended up getting the role of Walt on Breaking Bad.

I can see his frustrations with wanting more, but Cranston is comedically charming in his persona. Even in Breaking Bad it shined through. I can see why people only wanted him for comedic purposes at first.
Travoltron said:
That's fine, I guess. I remember as a kid they would do TV movie reunions for old boomer TV shows like Andy Griffin, I Dream of Jeannie, Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, etc. People seemed to like them.

I don't know why that mostly stopped with the Boomers. I'd have liked to see some of the shows I grew up with have a reunion special, especially the ones that had shitty endings or non-endings.
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I think it would have been better if they had done an actual reunion special the way "Friends" or "Everybody Loves Raymond" did. Have the cast and creatives involved with the show gather around to talk about it.

I don't need to know what happened after the show ended. They are not going to be able to capture the spirit of the original show two decades after it ended. And even if they could, the show already had the perfect ending with the perfect message to leave on.
 
I agree it can go badly. Knight Rider had a non-ending that saddened me. I was so excited when the Knight Rider 2000 TV movie was announced. And it was utter shit. I didn't know it was a failed TV pilot at the time. Every attempt to bring Knight Rider back sucked.

On the other hand, Project ALF was OK. The cliffhanger the TV series ended on was so brutal. The TV movie wasn't perfect, but at least it gave us an ending.
 
Travoltron said:
I agree it can go badly. Knight Rider had a non-ending that saddened me. I was so excited when the Knight Rider 2000 TV movie was announced. And it was utter shit. I didn't know it was a failed TV pilot at the time. Every attempt to bring Knight Rider back sucked.

On the other hand, Project ALF was OK. The cliffhanger the TV series ended on was so brutal. The TV movie wasn't perfect, but at least it gave us an ending.
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ALF fans already had their ending. The ALF comic gave the series the perfect ending and project ALF was a big disappointment compared to the comic.
 
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Excuse me??? I didn't see this mentioned while skimming, but their youngest daughter is nonbinary in the show. This confirms to me it's going to be utter dogshit. I'm so bummed.
 
Alright, so I watched all four episodes, and I'm conflicted. Yeah, the whole thing is four episodes mostly comprising of member berries, and it's doing the modern TV trend of a lot of telling and not showing, but I still ended up liking it. Maybe they used the member berries better? Nothing great, just a fine 6/10.

The “non-binary” character really didn't even register unless other characters mentioned it, which they rarely did. I just assumed she was the daughter of the family—well, except in the last episode where she has the pink suit. Reese framing her for trashing the principal’s office was funny. It could’ve been a lot better without the girlfriend or even the daughter; just have him not want to be around his family until Lois drags him to be a part of the anniversary. That would’ve saved a lot of time trying to introduce and develop both of them and focused more on the already established characters.

I don't know if this is a test run to see if more can be milked out of this, but I'm hoping it stays a four-episode special.
 
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Fellen said:
Alright, so I watched all four episodes, and I'm conflicted. Yeah, the whole thing is four episodes mostly comprising member berries, and it's doing the modern TV trend of a lot of telling and not showing, but I still ended up liking it. Maybe they used the member berries better? Nothing great, just a fine 6/10.

The “non-binary” character really didn't even register unless other characters mentioned it, which they rarely did. I just assumed she was the daughter of the family—well, except in the last episode where she has the pink suit. Reese framing her for trashing the principal’s office was funny. It could’ve been a lot better without the girlfriend or even the daughter; just have him not want to be around his family until Lois drags him to be a part of the anniversary. That would’ve saved a lot of time trying to introduce and develop both of them and focused more on the already established characters.

I don't know if this is a test run to see if more can be milked out of this, but I'm hoping it stays a four-episode special.
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It's the same deal as That 70s Show revival, I barely see any excitement over it. So I fully expect it to die pretty quickly.
 
I binged it this morning. Overall... very boring and bland. I didn't get my hopes up and somehow I was still let down.

I think the biggest problem is it both simultaneously didn't really feel like MITM while also retreading a lot of issues the show already tackled two decades ago. Hal suffers an existential crisis over him realizing he might not have been a good dad. Malcolm's issues with his family and the pressure that is put on him. Francis's obsession with Lois and whether or not Lois really cares for him. It all just felt... I don't know how to word it. For a show about the hijinks of a chaotic family who had no impulse control the show really felt like it was lacking mayhem. I kind of wanted to fast forward as we dealt with the last episode.

I am happy they didn't go overboard with too many cameos from past characters. At the same time, the ones we did get (specifically the krelboynes and Francis's military pals) felt forced and like they had no reason to be there. They completely cut out Dewey from the storyline and his new actor didn't really do a good job capturing him with the few scenes he did have. They don't shove the non-binary sister down our throats, but she still was a little too much in the picture and didn't really need to be included. Her storyline with Reese went nowhere. They didn't even really include Jamie.

The whole anniversary party didn't even happen until the final episode and felt very underwhelming. The shot at the end of the trailer of the family sitting down and the party being completely in ruins was the biggest example of false advertising I think I have ever seen. The party itself is not really that chaotic, and there is really only a singular event at the end (which itself felt very underwhelming) that causes the place hosting the party to end up being trashed.

At the end of the day, this whole thing felt like ripping off a bandaid. We knew this was coming and we had to get it over with. Only now there is a giant gash where the healed cut should be.
 
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