Modern Family Pilot Episode.

Now I know this is weird but I enjoy TV, comics, games, anime, cartoons and movies but never all at once. I just don't have the time to watch a few episodes of a TV show, watch a movie and play a game all in one day unless I just don't go outside and recently TV has been my main source of indoor entertainment which is the main reason my blog has been updated so irregularly lately. Now I think I've only ever done one TV show review in my entire life mainly because I've never really known how to go about it, I mean if I review the entire season I can contain it one review but it doesn't go into enough detail, if I review each episode individually wont there be like hundreds of reviews? Well in the end the answer is yes to both, however looking around it seems perfectly acceptable for reviews to just review TV shows by episodes. So that is exactly what I'm doing. Enjoy!


Now I know what you're thinking, why didn't you pick a brand new or cancelled show so you haven't got like a thousand episodes to review? And aren't seasons upon seasons behind. And honestly there are three main reasons why I picked this show, despite its lack of relevance and length. 1) is that the episodes are thirty minutes meaning hopefully there'll be less to write about which'll mean much shorter reviews - just more of them 2) I've never really watched a show like this before, so I'll be discovering it and you can come on the journey with me and 3) I will review the whole first season because I don't want to half review something but that doesn't actually mean I'll be reviewing all seventy or so episodes. I may just finish reviewing the first season and not come back to the show again.

Now I also know it'd be much more professional for me to watch the entire season, come back and rewatch each episode with knowledge of how the whole thing plays out. But I want to discover things at the same time you guys do, so to keep it exciting and with the possibility to take me off guard, I'm not going to start another episode until I've reviewed the one I'm currently watching.

Modern Family is a comedy show which plays out almost like a mock reality TV show, as we see windows into each of the characters lives - while the characters themselves sit down and react directly to the camera the events we have just seen.

Apparently many of the episodes, particularly the early ones were based on the shows creators, and showrunners and executive producers Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan own experiences with their families. Or 'modern families' if you will.

Despite the first two seasons getting universal acclaim (the third season not so much) the show hasn't gone without some controversy. Now I just want to say something - I can't really comment on this too much only seeing the first episode but I wish more people would realise the real world isn't Tumblr so for all of those complaining the gay family is really campy or they are weird around each other and so on, you're right I agree with you, this is wrong and you should expect more from the show. But at the same time you have to realise the world is full of stuff that is wrong, but it's how it's done anyway. Surprisingly in the world of iPad's and mobile phones with more power than a laptop made five years ago people aren't intelligent enough to accept that gay people are just normal people like the rest of us so the fact that Modern Family bothered to include a gay family at all and didn't market itself as 'THAT SHOW WITH THE GAY FAMILY ON IT' is genuine progress, by all normal standards this is absolutely shit progress but sadly this is about as much as you can expect right now and at least be glad the media is taking notice of social changes as much as social changes are taking notice of the media even if it sucks.

The episode opens with an interesting juxtaposition of our three main families;
The first family is Phil and Claire with their two girls and a boy (who possibly has a few issues), who open in an extremely stressful morning routine with hints that Phil is incompetent and Claire is controlling with one nerdy daughter and one who is 'out of control'. These are easily the least interesting family out of the three in the episode possibly because, minus Phil, this family is the most down to Earth and normal.

The second family are Jay and Gloria and these guys are hilarious, Jay is this relaxed older guy and Gloria is a bit of a milf who doesn't speak great English but has heaps of enthusiasm with their fat son Manny who is perhaps a little too effeminate for his own good, more interested in girls than sports.

Our final family is Mitchell and Cameron - the prementioned gay couple who are apparently breaking the law, 'adopting' a Vietnamese child and bringing it onto US soil.

There are three main conflicts in the episode the first is that Phil wants to be 'the cool Dad' while Claire wants to be 'the parent of the year' and they clash and cause problems for their kids who are busy making problems themselves like kids do. The second is Mitchell seems uncomfortable to accept the fact he is gay while Cameron just doesn't care which is mirrored in their parents attitudes to their relationship and the third is Jay is uncomfortable being so old in relation to his wife and getting mistaken for her Dad, he is clearly insecure about a lot of things. I'm just impressed in one episode it tackles the life of homosexuals, of a man much older than his wife and just normal family life in general, it crams a lot of issues into half an hour without ever feeling bloated or overly PC.

The show, thank the lords, doesn't have a laugh track and with an American show not screaming at you where to laugh I was able to really take the humour in and was laughing my ass off within the first five minutes of the episode right until the very end. Jay and Gloria are probably my favourite couple although Phil is perhaps the funniest character in the episode but this is possibly helped by the fact his immediate family surrounding him is made up of extremely boring characters. The humour almost has a Family Guy like quality due to the mockumentary/reality TV show style segments where the characters talk directly to the camera, sometimes they are just talking about themselves with scenes to reinforce this which have very little to do with the plot, they are just there to be funny.

The episode is well paced and plotted and sharply written, at first it's easy to see the episode as a random menagerie of scenes that seem to be there just for laughs and nothing else but as the episode progresses they all come together to make much bigger laughs. And the big twist at the end of the episode is these families are all connected. Jay isn't Manny's father, he is his step father. Jay's children are Claire and Mitchell. And I was damn impressed by the twist, connecting it all together.

Because these reviews from this point forwards will be shorter than normal movie reviews (this one is actually a bit longer because of all the context at the start) because the episodes are only thirty minutes (closer to twenty without adds) and I'm not going to do the 'do I recommend it' bit until I do a series overview review at the end. I'm going to add a new segment to breakdown the review a bit like a TL;DR section.

Pros;
It tackles a lot of big issues without shoving them in your face.
It's laugh out loud hilarious without need for a laugh track.
Despite having a large cast of central characters the episode was tightly written and well paced and everything came together with a satisfying payoff.

Cons;
The episode did start to teeter near cringe territory and not in a good way with some of the jokes, like Phil's 'cool Dad' shtick was perhaps a little too long with it repeatedly appearing in the episode and it started to just get embarrassing - it was funny the first time though and that Lion King scene was just retarded.
I'm not really sure on Phil and Claire's family - I mean Phil is funny but I just found Claire and her kids a bit annoying.

Think About It!

-Locke