'Modern Family' shows you gotta have heart
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Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen on "Modern Family."
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CENTURY CITY, Calif. -- After a multiyear, almost decade-long drought, the television sitcom again has a heartbeat -- emphasis on heart.
It's not that there haven't been any TV comedies in recent years but they have been fewer in number and largely centered around workplace families ("30 Rock," "The Office"), not flesh-and-blood families.
CBS's Monday night lineup remains the standard-bearer for traditional, laugh-track sitcoms, and the growing success of "The Big Bang Theory" (a friends-as-family show) kicked off the comedy renaissance.
But it took ABC's bold -- some would say potentially suicidal -- move of slotting a two-hour comedy block on Wednesdays last fall to bring the family comedy back to prominence. That 75 percent of the block has been renewed (au revoir, "Hank") is a minor miracle for a business where 80 percent of new shows fail.
While "Cougar Town" (9:30 p.m.) is Wednesday's least conventional family show and "The Middle" (8:30 p.m.) the most traditional, "Modern Family" (9 p.m.) is the series that has won over the most viewers and critical acclaim. It has done so by making a large cast (11 people, including all the children) easy to follow, by offering multiple point-of-view entry points (young, old, conservative, liberal, male, female, gay, straight) and most of all by having a heart.
"We like emotion. We want emotion in our comedies," executive producer Steven Levitan said in January while standing on the set of Lily's room in Mitchell & Cam's house. "Our favorite 'Cheers' episodes were the surprising ones where the hair on the back of your neck goes up because you're feeling something in the middle of this light comedy. ... If there's a bit of snarkiness, you sense it comes from love. Everybody loves each other. That's the starting point.
"Modern Family" follows an extended family headed by patriarch Jay (Ed O'Neill, "Married With Children"), who is remarried to the young Colombian immigrant Gloria (Sofia Vergara), who has a romantic-minded son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Jay's daughter, Claire (Julie Bowen, "Lost"), is married to goofy suburban dad Phil (Ty Burrell, "Back to You") and they have three kids. Jay's son, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson, "The Class"), has adopted a baby with his partner, Cam (Eric Stonestreet).
First Published May 12, 2010 12:00 am
