After a long wait, the same channel that entertained us with Ally McBeal and The Simpsons, gave another set of funny, warm and wryly inappropriate family – Wilkerson in half-an-hour series ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ which ran for 61/2-year and for seven seasons with each episode featuring a hilarious, sprawling and mind-busting storyline.
Winner of the prestigious Peabody Award, seven Emmys, one Grammy, this show thrives on sheer family dysfunction. Shown through the eyes of Malcolm, the neglected middle child, gifted with genius IQ who talks directly to camera to express himself. The show travels over Malcolm’s life, how he tries to navigate his way through life despite the various obstacles thrown his way. The constant burden of masterminding his plans to get himself and his brothers into and out of troubles, his inability to make sense of the opposite sex, his longing for acceptance by the normal kids and much less his embarrassing family, full of aberrant creatures who constantly struggle for position and dominance in the family.
The show reveals Malcolm’s eccentric family with a hint of cartoonish exaggeration to a nearly normal family. Like the bizarre hygiene rituals where Malcolm’s mom shaves his father’s excessive body hair at the breakfast table – just like that! Francis, Malcolm’s oldest and favorite brother, who is willing to move from Alabama to Alaska to New Mexico – as long as its keeps him from moving back home; Reese, the older brother who has mastered the art of a perfect blank stare, and makes up for his lack of intelligence with; Dewey, younger to Malcolm who has learned his tricks from the best and often pulls the wool right over his brothers’ eyes. And then there’s Jamie, the newest member. Malcolm’s parents - Hal, the big kid at heart dad & Lois, the control freak mom, are always at the task of trying to stay one step ahead of their boys and their individual weapons and fighting styles in this unending warfare – Reese with his fierceness, Malcolm with his intellect and Dewey with an awe-inspiring obedience. When the boys unite, they usually do to hold some gross experiment. But Lois is master of them all as her shrewdness and aggression is unbeatable. A truly superb show which beautifully captures the subtle nuances of family life.
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