TV review<\/h2>\n
Family reunions, even when you love the people there, can always be a bit of a mixed bag.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For every nice moment you may have reconnecting, there are likely to be just as many, if not more, painful reminders of why some parts of your upbringing are best left in the rearview mirror. Such is the case with the misfire that is \u201cMalcolm in the Middle: Life\u2019s Still Unfair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both oddly belabored and slapdash, this four-part event miniseries picks up years after the early 2000s sitcom about a dysfunctional American family came to what should have been its close. Alas, nothing can ever stay concluded as the remakes, reboots and revivals will seemingly continue until morale improves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This one is by no means the worst offender, as it brings some absurd jokes and gags that make you sit up a bit when it lets them play out. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience is defined by increasingly empty callbacks, a rushed storyline and a forced sentimentality that ends up smothering its more scathing wisecracks. It brings back nearly all the original cast, including the actor-turned-NASCAR racer Frankie Muniz as the titular Malcolm, but is never able to fully recapture the comedic spark that the original series consistently had. Save for Bryan Cranston baring all as the family\u2019s maniacal and insecure patriarch, it\u2019s less an engaging revival than a tiresome dragging out of a television corpse. It\u2019s still got good bones, but there\u2019s something unshakably sad about seeing them flung around in a way almost entirely devoid of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is felt from the very opening when we see a quick \u201cPreviously on\u201d montage of the original show that captures how chaotic, crass and ultimately creative it could be. When we then hear narration from Cranston, saying, \u201cAnd someone actually asked for more of this,\u201d it\u2019s a good joke \u2014 yet it speaks to a prevailing insecurity the revival is never able to get free of. It seems to be trying to convince us that this is really what we all wanted. But if the \u201csomeone\u201d who asked for more is a reference to the audience who loved the original show, it\u2019s certainly likely they would have asked for far more than what this offers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We then get taken through a quick update on where Malcolm is now, which involves Muniz speaking to the camera as his younger self did, but with very little of the same charm. We learn how he\u2019s largely cut himself off from his family, raising his own daughter (Keeley Karsten) as a single father and also building a relationship with his girlfriend (Kiana Madeira). It all provides a painfully broad sense of how everything and nothing has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n