Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday, on a Wednesday! This week, I’m starting my look at Modern Family (2009-2020, ABC), which is currently available on DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming!
Modern Family stars ED O’NEILL as Jay, SOFIA VERGARA as Gloria, JULIE BOWEN as Claire, TY BURRELL as Phil, JESSE TYLER FERGUSON as Mitchell, ERIC STONESTREET as Cam, SARAH HYLAND as Haley, ARIEL WINTER as Alex, NOLAN GOULD as Luke, and RICO RODRIGUEZ as Manny.
Modern Family is ABC’s flagship sitcom from the 2010s, its most popular offering and the show that best represents its comedic efforts during this era. While CBS had Chuck Lorre or Lorre-adjacent multi-cams and NBC was boasting comedically forward workplace/hangout single-cams, ABC’s biggest hits were family-centered single-cams distinguished by an obvious hook (or two). Think: The Goldbergs, Black-Ish, Fresh Off The Boat, American Housewife. And even The Middle, a fellow 2009-2010 freshman that occupied its own niche within this subgenre, especially as a contrast to Modern Family. At the core of each, but primarily Modern Family, is a familiar domestic setup. In this case, a goofy husband, a controlling wife, and three fairly generic kids: ditz, nerd, imp. All stuff we’ve seen before. Yet surrounding them are more interesting, specific dynamics – the hooks that help this sitcom stand out from its competition. The controlling wife’s brother is a gay man raising an adopted child with his life partner, while their father has recently re-married a much-younger Columbian woman with a son of her own. That makes this step-son the adult siblings’ half-brother, despite the fact that he’s much closer to their kids’ age. These are unique, less-common sitcom setups and they earn this show its “modern” moniker, for they eschew the image of the “typical” nuclear family otherwise also embodied inside the show as a contrast. What’s more, both are foundational tenets of the situation, ready to guide individualized comic story. The father’s new family adds relational conflict, while the presence of a gay couple implies its own challenges and therefore narrative fodder. The latter also is, in particular, the thing that makes the show timely, as gay regulars were still fairly novel in 2000s sitcoms. Especially when allowed to be a de facto married couple… living in suburbia… with a kid.
That framing of a “non-traditional” family in traditional trappings was actually the whole point of the show, packaging new, and thus novel elements, inside a situation that made them familiar, “normal.” This is smartly mirrored, in reverse, by the show’s very method of production: a mockumentary setup à la The Office. A look rooted in reality TV, with conventions of faux documentaries, like, specifically, cutaways for to-camera interviews. But after the pilot, Modern Family opts never to acknowledge an implied documentary. It’s unlike The Office, where the presence of the cameras was always material to the storytelling and the comedy because of the characters’ implied awareness of them. No, Modern Family is closer to Parks And Rec, which also dropped the documentary conceit early in its run, maintaining the aesthetic as merely a stylistic choice, with a sense of veritas suggesting personal, intimate access, and interviews offering easy plot exposition or extra scene-bolstering laughs. For Modern Family, the mockumentary look was also additive as another affiliation to modernity – not just via a more cinematic (read: non-multi-cam) setup, but also an even more deliberately sexy, sophisticated milieu unique to the genre in the 21st century. Its application just happened to also be situationally approved; a “modern” view on something evergreen, like a suburban-set family comedy, was a compatible framing. Just like a gay couple in suburbia, Modern Family got to contextualize itself as modern, while in actuality operating as traditional because of its foundational genre constructs. Everything in it therefore was made familiar by default. Typical. Normal. And that depicted normalcy is this series’ whole raison d’être – reinforced through every facet of its identity. All of ABC’s hit 2010s family comedies would come to a similar thesis, only not as wholistically supported.
Modern Family is also the leader of this pack, with its popularity and long run cementing its legacy. That stems from the sheer fact that it’s well-designed. And it’s well-designed because it’s simple, which makes sense because the series was created and thereafter shepherded by two learned scribes. One was Christopher Lloyd, who had cut his teeth on The Golden Girls and later served as the much-heralded headwriter for Frasier. The other was Steven Levitan, another Frasier alum, who created the reliable Just Shoot Me! This was the duo’s second sitcom as a producing pair, following the short-lived Back To You (for which they had first cast Ty Burrell). With lots of practice on well-constructed shows, both writers brought their expertise into this development process, particularly with regard to character. In fact, what most impresses me about Modern Family is that the higher-concept, or rather, more premised elements of its otherwise low-concept family situation – where two non-traditional family setups bracket the nuclear “normal” — are actually low-concept in theory too, for they’re merely about characters in relation. That is, the gay couple raising a kid, and the May/December marriage with the elder patriarch and a younger Columbian woman who brings along a son of her own, are still simple familial arrangements that exist within this relatable domestic framework. And so, playing up those tensions as a matter of premise-satisfaction is still somewhat low-concept as well — exploring how these characters relate to each other within this particular family. You know, just as we would see on any sitcom about a funny group of relatives.
In that regard, Modern Family sets itself up, even with those hooks, to be inherently focused on its leads – which means there’s an intrinsic understanding of what a sitcom must prioritize to sustain a long and healthy run. Such wisdom is foundational with writers like Lloyd and Levitan, and it also explains why this series isn’t idea-driven on principle. This isn’t a descendant of All In The Family, where the regulars are conduits for stories that enable conceptually superseding goals. There is no political objective here. Rather, Modern Family shares the pedigree of, say, the character-led Frasier, where the conceptual parts of the premise that might seem ideological only exist to specify the characters and their relationships. In other words, this isn’t a sitcom about an extended family grappling with a gay couple (or the father’s remarriage), but about an extended family that includes a gay couple (and a father who has remarried). When there’s conflict, it’s about the characters, not the topics. This noble fixation on character starts from the top, and it’s the series’ best attribute, a fundamental strength. To wit, almost every single regular is clearly defined from the start. Yes, there’s much more info about them filled in over time, and the more peripheral members of the cast, like the kids (of whom Luke is always the least pinpointable), certainly get clarified throughout the first year. (And eventually, everyone’s depiction is going to heighten in accordance with an ongoing increase of broadening, ante-upping comedic ideas.)
But pretty much every personality is graspable on day one, along with the basic tenor of their relationships. It’s the kind of immediate excellence we only see in classics. And I point this out because I think Modern Family is even rarer. It’s another character-driven sitcom, but one where the “rising knowingness” of its regulars, which enhances upon the repetition of applying them in motivated stories, doesn’t significantly improve the overall episodic quality of the show compared to what came before. While other day-one greats like Frasier and Mary Tyler Moore both became better situation comedies as their character smarts grew, Modern Family starts in almost ideal form, when its situation’s more uniquely premised constructs (the less traditional but still low-concept familial dynamics) are also at their most novel. It doesn’t have to wait for a more favorable intersection of these two trends — like most character-driven shows do, typically peaking in their second, third, or maybe even fourth years. No, these characters are already well-calibrated enough to not make any later trade-off more desirable. As such, although it’s not an idea-driven sitcom, Modern Family’s trajectory is reminiscent of one, as its peak occurs earlier than expected: when it’s most regularly using its premised familial dynamics, and specifically the most unique among them, to generate its weekly stories.
The other half of this equation is that these premised constructs lose their novelty fast, after only a year or two. And that’s not a surprise, for they’re not flashy idea-driven setups in the first place; they’re just family relationships meant to help guide plot. As the show increasingly fulfills its thesis, affirming that a so-called “modern” family is really just a normal, ordinary family after all, the excitement of these non-traditional but series-defining elements wanes. They indeed become more familiar, and stories premised on them quite naturally diminish as a result. Specifically, tensions that may exist in the family because of a gay couple, or more likely, because of the patriarch’s remarriage, are less explorable as the group comes to genuinely accept them. (This isn’t Everybody Loves Raymond, which wants its precise inter-ensemble clashes to persist as the maintained rubric for situation-satisfaction.) This means, the premise’s ability to directly provoke episodic conflict alone dwindles – along with the series’ explicit reflection of these key tenets on a weekly basis. After that, expectations built around the leads’ definitions must alone do the heavy-lifting for situation-fulfillment, with any premised underpinning merely implied.
Fortunately, as a low-concept family sitcom, that’s enough, genuinely, to sustain the show for a while. I reiterate, Modern Family’s character work proves to be greater after its peak. Despite the situation’s falling novelty ahead of Season Two, and every year thereafter, the show retains a consistent, reliable quality through Five. And heck, I’d even say Six — in an essentially post-premise world — is still solid compared to most long-running sitcoms’ counterparts, as most are unable to surpass 100 episodes in great or even good shape. That’s a testament, again, to Lloyd and Levitan’s character-focused design and the strength of said characters, which enables this show to run well beyond the helpfulness of its situation’s own conceptual lifespan. An imperfect but illustrative point of comparison is Cheers, whose character work improved a lot (more than Modern Family’s) after its first few years. However, just like Modern Family, its earliest years remain exceptional, largely because they zero in on more exact conceptual, and therefore individualized, interests. In Cheers’ case, that’s the Sam/Diane relationship, which rendered a nevertheless low-concept, extremely character-driven sitcom more precisely excellent on the terms most vital to the situation as designed. Of course, I make this association only to explain why I think a character-driven show like Modern Family peaks earlier than the norm, even as its leads’ definitions later refine and thus improve. Actually, the link extends no further; Cheers is a better sitcom than Modern Family because it stays good longer. Part of this was due to a radical shift in situation upon Diane’s departure, but part of it is also because Cheers was even more low-concept, putting even more stock on its characters to carry the day. And they did.
Modern Family‘s characters are struggling to stay helpful by Season Six. And I would go so far as to call Seasons Seven through Eleven subpar, relative not just to what came before, but to our broader definition of what makes ideal sitcommery. What’s the issue? Well, there’s the usual atrophy in all long-running series, sure; no matter how good elements of a situation may be at creating genre-defining consistency, nothing lasts forever. A situation must be iterated upon in new ways to remain enjoyable. When that stops, a show isn’t reliable, it’s redundant. Additionally, the primary reason this series gets about five or six good years as opposed to eleven is also in how it’s designed: it’s deliberately translating non-traditional elements into something traditional, ensuring that it’s always a palatable, overly familiar family show. This means its stories, even with well-defined characters, tend to be pretty common to this subgenre. Its templates are well-worn and its ideas sometimes indulge clichés. Naturally, this appears more and more as the run progresses, and the leads’ personalities are no longer inspiring new ideas for the show to use to personalize these formulas. But this is exacerbated by the fact that it’s always minimizing its most individually premised elements in order to depict them as normal and conventional. To that extent, Modern Family works against its own ability to remain fresh and novel longer, for it’s opting to prioritize the comfortable and familiar over the new and unusual. That’s fine for any sitcom… up to a point. That point is when reliable becomes redundant.
Everything’s redundant by Season Seven. By that time, Mitch and Cam, the gay couple, are enjoying very few stories unique to their family makeup. They no longer even have arcs that imply their definitions, like their efforts to adopt again, or their engagement in Season Five (the pair’s last ongoing story of premised consequence — a threshold moment for the series, as we’ll see). Instead, they get thrown generic sitcom couple troubles not well personalized by their depictions, such as annoying relatives who overstay their welcome or a precocious kid whose mouthiness gets them in trouble. Here, Modern Family proves not modern in the slightest. Like when stories eschew the cultural and/or generational differences between patriarch Jay and his much younger wife Gloria and instead feature nondescript disagreements that any couple could have. Here, Modern Family is just Family. And that’s not ideal – it’s less smart, less precise, less situation comedy. What’s more, I’m afraid Gloria – played by the funny Sofia Vergara, who like Ty Burrell and Eric Stonestreet, gets to play the expressive spouse to a member of the more uptight but anchoring Pritchett trio – is seldom used well after the early years. Once the rest of the family adjusts to her presence, she becomes just a vessel for easy laughs – a silly face with a silly accent. The show makes her pregnant again at the end of Season Three – a logline that’s not bad because it could possibly offer new situation-specific conflict via another wrinkle in the family’s non-traditional dynamic. But that’s not really explored, and afterwards, the show is saddled with an extra kid to provide even more clichés. A kid who finally starts speaking in Seven – getting confessionals in Eight – and is particularly awful, for he never develops a comic personality and always remains, like most sitcom tykes, a narrative device. He encapsulates Modern Family at its worst — an endeavor painfully lacking in comedic ingenuity.
As for the rest of the children, they each actually debut with pretty clear comic personas, relative to the genre. Luke is the least obvious, but the show sort of understands him as a Phil Jr., which works for a while. And after a first season that’s more adult-focused, the next few years give all of them more to do – such that I would say the best years for the kids (namely Haley, Alex, Luke, and Manny) are Seasons Two through Five. After that, the show calls upon them a little too much to carry story… and in the process, they all become more generic, for what this inevitably devolves into is rote, formulaic rom-com fare, predicated on who’s dating whom. Although Alex and Haley are always contrasted well enough as sisters to remain somewhat specific in spite of their lamer narrative usage – and Lily develops a sarcastic deadpan that makes her comedically knowable if not special within story – the boys dilute with intensity. Manny goes from precocious to banal, and the once mischievous Phil Jr., Luke, loses all semblance of a personality, such that I couldn’t even describe his character in the latter half of the run. All of this starts to become a real drain on quality around Six or Seven, by which time the kids are heavily featured but no longer as helpful as before, for their definitions have become corrupted by the kind of trite stuff they’ve gotten more and more tasked with offering.
The consumption of story, and unexciting, redundant story, also stems from a key aspect of Modern Family’s identity: it isn’t just a family sitcom, but an extended family sitcom with three separate households. By design, episodes are set up to have a plot for each house. That’s tough, for like every ensemble show, this series is at its best when everyone is together – when all elements of the situation are used in tandem. This sets up a hierarchy where events – holidays, graduations, parties – are poised to be more rewarding than everyday entries where the group is separated. Also, more subplots per week means more chances for disappointing subplots. And unless there’s a unity of plot, location, or theme justifying coexistence, disconnected stories aren’t additive. Modern Family really proves this as it progresses, for as the kids develop into more narratively present figures, the series ventures away from one story per house to a story for every character, which can often yield five or six threads in a single half hour. That’s way too many; and too often, these episodes lack enough of a unity of plot, location or theme to play as cohesive. It eventually becomes tough for any episode of Modern Family to be completely great. The more stories consumed, the more we see its basic weakness as a show with well-defined leads but a fairly generic, uninspired sense of narrative, thanks to a conception of its situation that, name aside, actually wants to prove its traditionality and thus normalcy, resulting in often familiar, unimaginative weekly ideas. This thesis is sometimes counterintuitive, especially for an era – the Peak TV decade – that demands cleverness and ingenuity as a seminal selling point, suggesting individualism. For that reason, I tend to favor the NBC Comedy Night Done Right titles over both Modern Family, and frankly, all the family shows ABC would thereafter cultivate.
On the other hand, if Modern Family is not as bold or exciting as my NBC favorites, I do think it’s a better example of the sitcom form, not only on principle, but in practice. This show gets to over 100 episodes with entertaining iterations on its situation that aren’t yet redundant. Indeed, I must again emphasize that Modern Family, despite my critiques, is designed to guarantee a healthy run of good or great quality. That’s remarkable. It reminds me of The Big Bang Theory. Oh, this show lacks a figure as comedically dominant as Sheldon, a walking ambassador for the value of character in situation comedy, but for sheer construction, Modern Family is expert. And in 2009-2010, where both probably had their best seasons, I would say Modern Family is slightly stronger than Big Bang – for, again, it’s got more going for it than just Sheldon. But after that, it’s a ping pong match for which of the two are better in direct competition. And if you laid their runs against each other – i.e., Season One vs. Season One, etc. – it’d also be a ping pong match. Meaning, they’re about comparable as long-lasting shows that are great or at least good for about half their runs. Also, before outliving their natural lifespans, they’re largely reliable in a way that speaks directly to the special charms of the sitcom as a genre. Like Big Bang, Modern Family is one of the most popular and culturally important titles of this era – it’s also even quite critically lauded too, as the TV Academy saw fit to award it five consecutive Emmys as the Outstanding Comedy Series, starting here. To be clear, I don’t think this is ever the best sitcom on TV after 2009-2010, its first and most novel season. But the fact that both audiences and critics enjoyed the series for so long is indicative of its broad and well-sustained appeal.
And why? Well, it took a few seemingly new, sexy ideas – non-traditional family designs, a mockumentary framing – and brought them to even more mainstream broadcast network tastes, setting up the kind of new-but-old family sitcom we’d see more in the 2010s, with distinguishing hooks belying traditional setups underneath. And as a staple of the 2010s, its sheer consistency was a credit to the genre. Like The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family *was* popular culture. One of the last sitcoms to be so. I’m excited to cover it here. Not only do I enjoy it, I consider it an important sample from the 2010s — a must-include era-definer.
01) Episode 1: “Pilot” (Aired: 09/23/09)
Cam invites Mitch’s family over to meet their newly adopted daughter.
Written by Steven Levitan & Christopher Lloyd | Directed by Jason Winer
Modern Family’s Emmy-winning pilot is a strong introduction to the series because the characters are already so well-defined. With the possible exception of the Dunphy children, whose delineation will become more obvious throughout the first half of the first season, everyone’s personality is clear, as are their relationships with each other inside their own respective households. To that point, the pilot evidences the show’s typical three-story structure of this era, with a not-unsurprising but still-artful culmination that reveals them all to be part of the same extended family. The event that unites them is Mitch and Cam’s announcement of an adopted daughter — a notion that speaks to the premised concept of this being a “modern” family because of “non-traditional” arrangements like this. Accordingly, this is a superb introduction to the situation — with the regulars pretty well-established from the jump and the dynamics that make this series unique front and center, motivating laughs and conflict. It’s textbook situation comedy — about as good as you could hope for any first episode of a series to be.
02) Episode 2: “The Bicycle Thief” (Aired: 09/30/09)
Phil gets caught in a web of lies after buying a bike for Luke despite Claire’s reservations.
Written by Bill Wrubel | Directed by Jason Winer
Proving that the pilot wasn’t an anomaly, Modern Family follows up its opener with another one of its funniest, most memorable samples of all time. It’s a comedy-filled half hour that, even more crucially, boasts three outstanding character-specific and relationship-developing stories, two of which exactly involve the conceptual tenets of the situation that most individualize the series in comparison to others. For instance, the story about Mitch not wanting Cam to be flamboyant as they join a playgroup with other parents and toddlers not only emphasizes Mitch’s uptight persona and the differences between him and Cam when it comes to their public presentations, the conflict is also hinged on their identity as a gay couple and the social tensions they experience as a result. Similarly, the subplot about Gloria trying to get Manny and Jay to bond is a terrifically simple narrative exploration of their new and unusual family dynamic. And lastly, there’s a dynamite and hilarious character-showing for Phil, where the differences in his parenting style and Claire’s are reiterated. So, it’s a comprehensive display of the situation via character and its uniquely premised elements. A shockingly good sophomore outing.
03) Episode 4: “The Incident” (Aired: 10/14/09)
Claire and Mitch’s mother — Jay’s ex-wife — pays a visit.
Written by Steven Levitan | Directed by Jason Winer
Shelley Long debuts in this installment as DeDe Pritchett, Jay’s first wife and the mother of both Mitch and Claire. She’s genius casting — a sitcom veteran with well-established comedy chops, a perfect match for someone like Ed O’Neill. Her presence is beneficial to every story in which she appears, for DeDe justifies the convergence of all three households, given that she ties together the extended Pritchett family, which gives the show opportunities to explore the situation in a big-picture, wholistic view. Of course, her best stuff nevertheless comes in her first few appearances — specifically, this introduction and its follow-up (in Season Two) — where she’s also helping to build out the family’s shared backstory, which further refines both the characterizations and their dynamics. This particular entry is also fun because of its hilarious climax where DeDe attacks Gloria. It’s an example of the broader, sometimes physical comedy that Modern Family uses to temper the sentimentality it naturally indulges as a family show, thereby asserting laughs as a primary focus (and one of its saving graces).
04) Episode 5: “Coal Digger” (Aired: 10/21/09)
Luke fights Manny at school for referring to their family dynamic as nephew and uncle.
Written by Christopher Lloyd | Directed by Jason Winer
Next to the pilot, this is the most premise-explicit offering from the entire run, dealing directly with interpersonal conflicts caused by the conceptual, unique aspects of this situation — namely, the fact that this family’s patriarch has married a much-younger Columbian woman and is now raising her son, a contemporary of his grandson. Those tensions come to the fore between the boys themselves — Luke and Manny, who are wisely made to be the same age, thereby enabling future stories to acknowledge this premised dynamic, even subtly. But here their beef is exacerbated by the parents, as Claire’s private issues with Gloria are addressed, bringing the situation out into the open, examining them and their relationship in the process. Now, obviously, this isn’t like Everybody Loves Raymond — this won’t be a recurring source of story, as with Debra vs. Marie — but it could have been, for every family has issues, especially ones with “non-traditional” arrangements. Speaking of which, it’s also fun to see Jay and Cam connect over football — it plays against our expectations of the flamboyant Cam while also acknowledging the distance Mitch feels with his dad, another premise-rooted conflict that Modern Family can explore, even after it loses its novelty and everything is more “normal.”
05) Episode 9: “Fizbo” (Aired: 11/25/09)
Luke’s birthday party devolves into chaos thanks to his extended family.
Written by Paul Corrigan & Brad Walsh | Directed by Jason Winer
My choice for this season’s Most Valuable Episode, “Fizbo” is probably the best-remembered half hour of the entire series. It’s definitely in the Top Five — for it features a memorable centerpiece of climactic chaos that, again, acquits Modern Family as a comedy-first sitcom, counterbalancing the “heart” that exists foundationally inside this family subgenre and the ethos cultivated by ABC during this era (relative, say, to both NBC and CBS). It’s also well-designed, built around a family gathering that provides an excuse to congregate the regular cast. That’s a recipe for success in any ensemble sitcom, let alone one that has multiple narrative threads per week and typically needs some unifying principle to justify their coexistence. Here, Luke’s birthday provides that excuse — and the ideas are some of the most formative, straightforward, exhibit-A reflections of the characters ever. Like Claire, whose orderly idea of fun is contrasted against her childlike husband’s. And Cam, whose clown alter ego, Fizbo, will become a running gag that further distinguishes him in a way that’s a true tribute to Modern Family’s sense of situation comedy. (Even though the novelty of that comic idea is never greater than now, creating a high bar that the series never again clears with respect to Fizbo.) Meanwhile, all the kids have been delineated by this point, making it feasible to say that this otherwise character-driven series is already in its peak era, even before its first year’s halfway point. That’s how immediately strong the character work happens to be. Indeed, this is a winner largely because of how it displays its leads, the most important elements of the situation. After this, many of the series’ finest showings will stand out for their narrative atypicality, rather than for being exquisitely exemplary, both with story, and most particularly, with character. (Incidentally, Eric Stonestreet won an Emmy Award for his work in this installment.)
06) Episode 15: “My Funky Valentine” (Aired: 02/10/10)
Phil and Claire attempt some role-playing at a hotel on Valentine’s Day.
Written by Jerry Collins | Directed by Michael Spiller
Valentine’s Day will become a recurring holiday for Modern Family, with this entry’s fun notion of Phil and Claire roleplaying as Clive and Julianna turning into its own running gag. But as with most ideas on this series, it’s never more potently used than when brand new, for despite a rising understanding of the leads keeping outings in this subcategory competitive fodder for my lists, the show just inherently becomes more normal and therefore benign over time, lacking fresh setups that maintain the high creativity necessary to build or improve upon past successes. No future Valentine’s Day with Clive and Julianna ever tops the climactic gag here, where she gets her trench coat stuck in a hotel escalator but can’t take it off because she’s wearing nothing underneath, setting up an embarrassing scene that even involves Jay and Gloria, fresh off a subplot (with David Brenner) that directly makes note of their non-traditional premised dynamic, and the fact that he is so much older than she is. Additionally, Cam and Mitch are funny in their scenes as they help Manny with his romantic troubles — rendering this the series’ best Valentine’s Day, with strong moments for character, premise, and comedy.
07) Episode 18: “Starry Night” (Aired: 03/24/10)
Jay brings Manny to a father-son tradition with Mitchell, while Cam hangs out with Gloria.
Written by Danny Zuker | Directed by Jason Winer
This is another excursion with disconnected stories that nevertheless earns its place on my list because each one is commendable — something, again, that is not common, especially as the number of subplots per week increases as the kids grow in narrative prominence. Here, we’ve just got three main setups — the best of which involves the premised non-traditional aspects of the situation, as Jay brings Manny along to stargaze with Mitch, a regular father-son activity that has changed as a result of Jay’s new family. This not only causes friction, but it adds to the tension that already exists between Mitch and his dad, in large part because of their differences, underscored by Mitch’s sexuality and the other family dynamics that define the series here in Season One. So, this is a quintessential example of Modern Family playing to the very things that make it most special. Meanwhile, Claire and Phil get complementary chances to contrast their parenting styles in a way that innately reflects their characterizations — it’s perfect for them — and Cam hangs out with Gloria, one of the first times that this series pairs two of its funniest players, who develop a unique chemistry that flatters both of their comic characterizations.
08) Episode 22: “Airport 2010” (Aired: 05/05/10)
At the airport, Gloria surprises Jay with a full-family trip to Hawaii.
Written by Dan O’Shannon & Bill Wrubel | Directed by Jason Winer
The last few episodes of the season all benefit from narrative cohesion due to clear uniting principles. This story has Gloria surprising Jay with news that their upcoming trip to Hawaii is actually going to be a getaway for the entire family — including his kids and their kids. With most of the show then taking place at the airport ahead of their departure, there’s a unity of time, place, and action that makes it all feel artful and complementary, a reflection of the series’ situation in a wide-angle lens, where everything works together. Oh, and this is in spite of the fact that it’s an atypical showing, taking the series away from its regular sets for a deliberately one-off and gimmicky travel entry… an idea that also exists largely to set up the installment that immediately follows. And yet, we’re in a character-driven series that most thrives when it’s exploring the regulars and their relationships, so with that as a focus, this is exactly the kind of offering that represents Modern Family and what it should be doing — playing up comic tension within the extended family, comprised of these great, funny regulars.
09) Episode 23: “Hawaii” (Aired: 05/12/10)
Everyone tries to enjoy themselves on vacation in Hawaii.
Written by Paul Corrigan & Brad Walsh | Directed by Steven Levitan
Truthfully, I debated whether or not to include this outing, for I find it fundamentally gimmicky — the series giving itself an excuse to take the cast and crew on location. I typically don’t like trips because they break from too much of the established situation, which also includes its regular settings. Also, on-location stunts typically invite stories that are idea-driven and related to the particulars of the place, rather than anything actually character-specific or interesting in the regular context of the show and what it promises to be. However, Modern Family’s “Hawaii” is much better than anticipated, with real stakes for the characters and their relationships, and in particular, a lot of hilarious moments that both elevate this half hour to the point of undeniable memorability, and also genuinely represent the series’ cultivated comedic ethos. For instance, the whole sequence of Cam and Mitch losing Lily around the hotel is fun, and the scene with Jay and Phil on the hammock is a hoot. So, I’d miss this selection if it wasn’t on this list, and despite its gimmickry, I consider it a worthwhile sample of the series, even here in Season One.
10) Episode 24: “Family Portrait” (Aired: 05/19/10)
Claire struggles to arrange the perfect family photo.
Written by Ilana Wernick | Directed by Jason Winer
Season One ends with another strong uniting narrative — Claire’s efforts to ensure that a family portrait goes off without a hitch. This is a classic sitcom setup for lots of chaos to ensue, and it’s structurally artful, reflecting the kind of sitcommery Modern Family is most adept at offering. To wit, there are a handful of great character moments — especially the sequence that cross-cuts Cam, the grandiose performer, singing opera while uptight Mitch tears apart their house trying to evict an errant pigeon. It’s the kind of comedic set piece that cements Modern Family as a comedically competitive show. One that deserves to stand alongside other hilarious sitcoms from the late 2000s and early 2010s (like 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, Big Bang, etc.). Now, okay, these ideas themselves may not be as one-of-a-kind as the best on the aforementioned, but this series is just so well-built in terms of character, comedy, and premise. It’s excellent — and never more so than here, when Modern Family is indeed at its most “modern,” i.e. conceptually distinct.
Other notable episodes that merit mention include: “Undeck The Halls,” a Christmas-themed entry with several funny stories, “Up All Night,” where Benjamin Bratt debuts as Manny’s father, “Moon Landing,” which has a couple of fun character pairings, and another formative outing that I really could have celebrated above because it brilliantly fleshes out the leads, their relationships, and their premised constructs — the third-aired “Come Fly With Me.”
*** The MVE Award for the Best Episode from Season One of Modern Family goes to…
“Fizbo”
Come back next week for Season Two, a new Wildcard, and a musical treat!