Warner Bros. | 2009 | 528 mins. | NR
For the 2009-2010 television season, ABC decided to do away with their entire Wednesday night lineup and introduce an entire slate of new series. With the well-regarded but ratings-challenged shows Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, and Dirty Sexy Money all cancelled after just two seasons, ABC loaded the schedule with comedies. Their biggest success was Modern Family, which proved to be a hit among the public and Emmy voters, who gave the series the award for Outstanding Comedy Series. While not quite as big a hit, The Middle proved a big enough success to earn a second season which is set to premiere on September 22, 2010.
Frankie Heck (Patricia Heaton, Everybody Loves Raymond) is a seemingly typical mother living in Orson, Indiana a place; she notes in the first episode, that people fly over while they’re on their way to someplace else. Having recently lost her job, she’s had to take whatever she could find to help support her family. For her that means selling cars at Ehlert Motors, a task she’s perfectly unsuited for. She’s married to Mike (Neil Flynn, Scrubs), a down to earth, straight-talking foreman at the local quarry and has three children: teenage son Axl (Charlie McDermott), awkward daughter Sue (Eden Sher), and the slightly odd, anti-social Brick (Atticus Shaffer).
The series itself is fairly straightforward. The laughs come from things most of us can likely relate to: raising the kids, paying the bills, and dealing with various kid issues. All of this is nothing particularly unique, but it works well because each of the characters seems so real. Everyone has probably met a teen like Axel at some point in their life. Unenthused, unmotivated, and of the opinion that his parents are totally uncool, Axel can often be found loafing on the couch, half dressed. Overlooked middle child Sue is a notorious underachiever who has tried and failed at nearly every extracurricular activity, but keeps on trying. 8-year-old Brick is a socially inept bookworm.
The premise of every episode is born out of the fact that the Hecks are decent, average people, just trying to carve out a solid life for themselves. TV or Not TV, In an attempt to cutback on expenses, the family gets rid of cable, with Frankie and Mike struggling to adjust to a TV-free existence. At the same time, Brick struggles when his social skills class is forced to go out at recess. In another hilarious episode titled “Valentine’s Day,” Brick is attending a sleepover at a member of his social skills class, Sue is at her first ‘boy-girl’ party and Axl is planning a triple date with friends. Given the circumstances, Frankie and Mike believe they just might have a quiet evening at home. (Mike’s plan is to ‘knock one off now” while they’re still energetic, go out and have dinner, and then come back home and do it again. “You really up for that?” Frankie asks. “I dunno, but I’d sure like to try?”) Unfortunately, Axl’s plans change when the girls he and his friends are supposed to go out with meet some college guys. The girls go off with the older men promising that they’ll ditch them right after dinner, so the boys end up at Axl’s house to wait. This puts a wrench in Mike and Frankie’s plans, but they can still go out to dinner. Except that every place they go has an hour wait. After trying a few places they end up back at their favorite restaurant where the wait time has doubled. Things only go downhill from there.
In thinking about The Middle, the only real comparison I could come up with was Malcolm in the Middle, without quite as much craziness, as the comedy here is far more subtle. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this series, so If you haven’t had a chance yet, might I suggest you give it a look.
The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image looked solid; fairly typical for a TV on DVD release. There was some grain on the first episode, but it didn’t appear in later installments. Other than that the lines were tight, the colors were solid, and the level of detail was very good.
The show comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 English audio track (as well as a Portuguese language track in stereo) and optional subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and Chinese. Though it’s mainly dialog driven, the show sounded very good with a nice, wide front soundstage and some music coming from the rears that helped to create an immersive feeling.
There are a few special features included, but none of them are particularly noteworthy. There are several deleted scenes, a typical gag reel and a behind the scenes featurette, Raising a Sitcom Family, that’s pretty much standard EPK. The only other item is Sue’s Best Shots, where the cast and crew recall their own worst school pictures.
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