'The Middle' Is TV’s Top Working-Class Comedy
Earlier this week, ABC announced it had ordered two more episodes each for the current seasons of The Middle, The Goldbergs, and Black-ish, for a total of 24 episodes this season —signalling a further vote of confidence in these sitcoms. Although it doesn’t win the big Emmys, as Modern Family does, and it doesn’t have the buzz Black-ish has, The Middle is the lead-off batter for ABC’s Wednesday-night comedy line-up for a good reason. Now in its seventh season, it has proven to be a consistently-imaginative presence on the current TV landscape: a look at a Midwestern, working-class family that avoids both excessive sentimentality and excessive crudeness.
I credit stars Patricia Heaton and Neil Flynn for a lot of The Middle’s distinctiveness. From Heaton I expected the kind of terrific performance she gives as Frankie, the harried-but-intelligent, beleaguered-but-adept head of the Heck family household. When The Middle first premiered, though, it was Flynn that surprised me. I knew Flynn’s work only from his surly-janitor character on Scrubs, so I had no concept of his comedic range. As Frankie’s tall, laconic husband, he’s proven to be a wonderful TV dad. His Mike is an excellent variation on the post-Roseanne Dan Conner-tradition father: over-worked, under-paid, sincerely loving but also too tired and too much of a guy’s-guy to get too caught up in the show’s funny family dramas.
As the series’ young cast — Eden Sher’s Sue, Charlie McDermotts Axl, and Atticus Shaffer’s Brick — has grown and, in some cases, graduated and moved out, The Middle has found clever ways to keep them coming back. Most recently, for instance, Axl and his college roomies were evicted from their campus rental, so all of them crammed into the Heck house. (The show does a fine job of casting its supporting roles as well.)
This is a strong season for The Middle. At a time in a show’s long life when it could be coasting or repeating itself, the series remains surprising. I especially liked the Halloween episode, in which Brick dressed up as Rod Serling — not, he was clear to say, the Serling of The Twlight Zone, but the Serling of Night Gallery. It’s little touches like this that distinguish the show from so many other network sitcoms right now — you know, the ones that are trying to fool you into thinking they’re really daring by using the word “vagina” as a punchline over and over.
The Middle is actually about something other than laughs. It’s about how a family struggles in the current economic climate. In the Oct. 21 episode, Frankie returned from a trip to the supermarket crowing, “I bought name-brand peas!,” brandishing the can proudly and adding that she’d also “super-sized the fries — I’m spending like a drunken sailor.” That’s the kind of thing you don’t see on other shows. Tonight is The Middle’s Thanksgiving episode; it’s always a strong entry.
The Middle airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on ABC.
