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 guess if I really have to try and stretch to give them props for this decision, I can credit them with the fact that it's sort of a funny gag that all that time, Lois wanted to have at least one daughter in the household, she successfully has one, and then later on said daughter decides that she's actually "gender fluid" or whatever the fuck. I don't know if that was intentional on their part but if it was, that's sort of clever. Other than that it's still odious and obviously checking boxes. And of course, the "nonbinary" chick just looks like a chick, because "nonbinary" is essentially a means for teenaged girls to get attention and join the "LGBTBBQXYZ+ community" with zero effort or real lifestyle changes on their part. I've seen it said that Linwood Boomer [the show's creator] gave an interview to some newspaper/magazine and said that the reason he wanted to ensure "inclusion" of such characters is because three of his kids are "queer". I guess that's meant to be some "sweet, heartwarming" anecdote but really all that tells me is that you've failed as a parent because three of your kids ended up defective and were probably molested or groomed, as statistically that's how queerdom is transmitted most of the time. If it isn't that, it's either trendhopping that they'll grow out of eventually, or they were groomed into it by their parents so they could receive accolades, attention and asspats for having a troon kid or whatever. Some parents seem to see it as a badge of honor, basically treating their troon kid as a little purse dog they can tote around and show off so people think that they're progressive and heroic and "so brave" or whatever.
If they really wanted to be inclusive and progressive, they should have had Stevie also convert to Islam and throw a few "Allahu Akbars" out, that way he would check every single box of the progressive stack. Black, "queer", disabled and Muslim, although I guess they could also throw in some gender confusion there, too. Make him an MTF troon that is gay and has a "transman boyfriend", so basically just being heterosexual with extra steps. Not progressive enough, sweetie!
Something else I'm seeing complained about [mostly on Reddit] is the fact that the brothers hardly have any interactions or dialogue at all with one another, which is fucking lame, too. The entire series was about the dynamic between the brothers, getting into stupid shit, pulling pranks, committing minor crimes, arguing with Hal & Lois, destroying the house, etc. Seems like they spent a lot more time focusing on the new characters that nobody cares about or has a reason to care about, since four episodes isn't long enough to even flesh them out and make people care. Then people have bitched about how they set up plotlines with said new characters but they can't actually develop or go anywhere because, again, it's only four episodes, unless they're angling for a spin-off based on Malcolm's daughter. I guess that might be possible. But since you know it's only a four episode run, one has no reason to get invested in the new characters or any of their plotlines, as you know there will be no resolution or a larger story arc. As usual the Redditoids are over there having a toxic positivity circlejerk where if you criticize the show even slightly, they'll tell you that you have no "media literacy" or that you're a bigot for not liking it, because surely you're only basing your opinion on the fact that there are queer characters. Anyone who complains get aggressively downdooted on sight, that is if you aren't banned outright. Jannies over there were discussing locking the subreddit for a time due to the influx of comments, which... there's a new release in a fucking series that's been dead since 2006, you'd think this would be a good thing? Shouldn't you be pleased that your dead subreddit is actually active now instead of rehashing the same five jokes, quoting the same four scenes, or posting the same three fucking memes over and over again? As that's what always happens in any community based around a long-dormant media franchise.
Seriously, I would like to know where in the fuck this Redditoid obsession with "media literacy" came from. I started noticing them repeatedly using that phrase like six months ago or so, it's basically at the same level as therapyspeak or "stochastic terrorism", with Redditoids it's like a firmware update rolls out and suddenly they're all updated with the latest buzzword in their vocabulary. "Um, yikes sweaty, if you didn't notice all of the progressive themes in this show clear back in 2004, you really need to work on your MEDIA LITERACY skills, you see you actually need a fairly high IQ to understand the subtle humor of Malcolm in the Middle, educate yourself..." Sorry, we don't all have the fucking time to acquire our Ph. D in "media literacy", fucknut.
The sticking point is going to be how much you liked Dale. The new voice actor is trying but terribly miss cast.
Can't properly quote when editing, but I can give them a pass for Dale since Johnny Hardwick died, but I heard Kanh's new voice actor in a clip of the new KOTH season and holy fucking shit, whoever they got to do him is AWFUL. And even worse, they just HAD to do that because you can't have a white dude voicing an Asian character anymore, just like on Family Guy they had to change Cleveland Brown's voice because they needed a black guy to do it, because everybody lost their fucking minds as a result of the "Racial Reckoning" [Chimpout] in 2020. New Kanh is terrible and I had hoped that Mike Judge would tell the whiny leftoids that are concerned about voice talent to fuck off, but he didn't. That's one reason why I think I've just skipped it, that one change felt like it indicated something about the overall quality of the new season, plus the animation looks terrible. Presumably it's all digital now and done by some studio in Korea/Vietnam or some shit, just like everything else.
