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

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I ended up watching the whole thing instead of doing work and it's incredibly meh. The reboot's really soft and is missing the cynical edge that made the show more interesting than the other big sitcoms.
Compare how Malcolm's annoying daughter gets treated in school compared to how the Krelboynes were humiliated regularly and it's night and day. Francis and Lois' arguments being more mellow was the only time it felt intentional. The only scenes where it feels like the old show are the flashbacks, because none of the new characters are around.
 
LordofCringe7206 Vol. 2 said:
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.
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No, they had to include another kid because the series ended with Lois finding out she's pregnant again. The issue is they cast a non-binary idiot that doesn't realize that acting often requires you to play characters that aren't like you at all. Lois finally having a daughter should have been a much bigger deal than it was but I guess they couldn't acknowledge it without the actress having a mental breakdown. The whole thing was such a waste.
 
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.
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It's on Hulu now? Jesus Christ, nobody told me.
 
You know, I don't hate it. Just watched the full revival, there's some really good jokes, everyone fits into their roles like a glove. It's genuinely enjoyable.
We finally learn what happened to Otto and Gretchen, and even a reference to Spangler (if you don't know, Otto and Spangler passed away)

We get some cameos from some cast members I didn't expect, like Francis' old military school buddies.

It's less of a sequel, more like a new season after a long break.

Bryan Cranston steals the fucking show and it's amazing.
 
Neet Tokusatsu said:
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And there goes any potential interest i could ever had in this revival.
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The parts with the original characters felt like old Malcolm. The parts with the news characters did not feel like Malcolm. I hated Kelly, she didn't feel like part of the family, outside of Reese doing one thing to her, the boys didn't even treat her like family, they didn't give her shit for her made up identity. I hate Jessica from the old show (the girl with the blonde bushy hair who convinced Malcolm and Reese the other was gay) with a passion... I hate Kelly more. They gave me false hope with Reese going too far with what he planned to do to her.

They rehashed stuff that was already settled in the show, like Malcolm and the pressure Lois was putting on him. What happened to Reese and Craig being roommates and friends? I hated that they made Stevie gay (his stretched ears were very out of character for him). The digital stuff stood out in a bad way when they should just used stunt doubles or something for that part. I wanted more out of Jamie to see how he was as a character.

Christopher Masterson is in his mid-40s and Frankie Muniz and Justin Berfield are both 40, I don't know why they aged the characters down. If they couldn't get Erik Per Sullivan back, the shouldn't have done this (I ended up really liking Dewey in the later seasons when he started to develop a character outside of "cute kid").

I'm complaining a lot, but the parts that reminded me of the old show were pretty good and I laughed at some parts. I give it a C+, the bad parts dragged it down more than I would have liked.
 
I'm so happy they included a non-binary character. This is totally what people want. Che from the turd "And Just Like That" walked so this true and honest creature could run. I hope many eggs are cracked and loads of new people are groomed.
 
I'm still dickering over whether or not I'll even bother to watch it, just like I did with the King of the Hill 'revival' [which I ultimately decided to skip, and I don't feel like I missed a whole lot by doing so] because there is a propensity for these things to absolutely taint my mental associations and memories of the original. That's precisely what happened for me with Futurama, I recall the original run highly but it's forever entangled with the rather shitty Comedy Central seasons that came after the movies [which were respectable IMO], though I did successfully avoid the new Hulu seasons of that because I just somehow knew they would be trash.

I don't really give a fuck about the nonbinary shit from a political/"woke" perspective but to me it serves as a sign that they aren't focused on making something good, rather in casting they are trying to check boxes. I also heard they made Stevie gay, which is A) retarded because he was clearly into girls in the show's original run, there's an entire A-plot in one episode about him faking a terminal illness to get laid with a girl that he likes, and B) unintentionally fucking hilarious because now Stevie checks every possible box, he is now gay, disabled and 'queer' - all they'd need to do next is have him convert to fucking Islam and he'd be the perfect character for 2020s culture, or what it was before 2024's backlash toward it.

Anyway, I am leaning toward not bothering at this point, came here to see what reasonable people thought about it because the Redditoids are all furiously circlejerking over there about how "wholesome" it was and how it made them tear up a few times or whatever the fuck. Gay. Also, from what I've seen in promotional images, clips, etc., it looks like they're - of course - using the shitty fucking sterile lighting that every other modern television show uses, which I dislike. It makes every setting in the show look like a fucking hospital room and it's tiresome. There should be studies done on just what the fuck happened to make film/television lighting so fucking garbage over the years, it's like its a forgotten art or some shit, sort of like how audio mixing has become awful - dialogue too fucking quiet, so you turn up the volume to hear what characters are saying [seriously I shouldn't need to automatically turn on subtitles for everything I fucking watch when I am not DEAF] and then get your ears blown off during the next action sequence. I guess it's just another stepping stone in the enshittification of everything - sort of like how animation is all CalArts inspired trash or CGI now. It really just feels like nobody gives a shit anymore about the quality of their work, everyone is just skating by on the bare minimum eternally.

It's also pretty lame that they appear to have limited Dewey to just "appearances" on a fucking video call/chat, despite casting a new actor for him - I presume the video call thing was originally intended so that Erik Per Sullivan wouldn't need to interrupt whatever he's doing and could still appear, but after he decided against returning, they could have done a lot more with his character without those limitations. And having Reese still be a loser is lame, too. It just seems like, from what I've seen, a series of cameos like "Hey! Remember this character? I'll bet you do! Isn't it cool that we got him back?!" and I guess sure, it is, but if you don't have an actual idea for this fucking plot, why bother making it?

I think I'm gonna pass on it, just like KOTH. It looks too "Disneyfied" for my liking anyway, which the original series was absolutely not.
 
Guys I figured it out, the reason Kelly ended up being an NB amoeba is because Lois had a geriatric pregnancy and the kid ended up becoming retarded. She must have been nearing her mid 40's when she had her.

also the showrunner has 4 children, 3 of which are faggots
 
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I liked the first three episode, but 4th episode was mostly filler and boring.
There were some funny moments in the first 3 episodes, but the only remotely funny moment in the 4th episode, was them splicing up Stevie's speech.
 
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I'm OK with them including a daughter who claims she's non-binary, because the show was always about a typical white lower-middle class American family, and lots of white lower-middle class kids claim to be non-binary. What I'm not OK with is the fact that it wasn't mined for comedy at all. Not even something as tame as Reese making fun of her and then realizing the error of his ways in the last episode. We're just expected to believe everyone in the Malcolm universe just bites their tongue about having a non-binary sibling after we all watched them torture each other over the smallest things for years.

I thought Hal was too Flanderized. His stuff was funny, but I think he went from generally competent but eccentric and childlike in the original series to incompetent and almost more toddler like here.

They nailed the characterizations of Lois, Francis and Malcolm, though. I also I totally think the way Malcolm's daughter acted was consistent with how I think someone raised by Malcolm would act.
 
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