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The
Middle
is Patricia Heaton’s
return to a TV show
based around a
family. After a
highly successful
run with
Everybody Loves
Raymond,
Heaton did
Back
to You
with Kelsey
Grammer to mixed
opinions and only
one season. Wisely,
she’s moved on to
what she does best…
playing a challenged
mom on the small
screen.
The
Middle
revolves around
Heaton’s character
Frankie Heck.
Frankie and her
husband Mike (Neil
Flynn from
Scrubs)
head up a
middle-class family
in Indiana with
three quirky kids.
Axel is the lazy
slacker… pretty much
your common high
school teenage boy.
Sue is Frankie’s
middle school-aged
kid and the
persistent
underachiever. She
tries at everything,
but ends up failing
at everything too.
Brick is the
youngest of the
three kids and at 8
years old, he’s a
socially challenged
genius who likes to
read more than he
likes to do things
that normal eight
year olds do.
There
are a couple of
problems with
The
Middle.
The first is pretty
finicky and that’s
set and costume
design. Where
Frankie works and
the schools where
the kids go are all
fine. What’s not
okay is the Heck’s
house. It’s not
designed to look
like a modern rural
middle class family
house. It’s meant to
look like a modern
rural middle class
home from the 70’s
and 80’s. There are
homes that look like
this… most of them
are home to 60 and
70 year old women.
The costume design
is a little off too.
The boys and Frankie
all dress pretty
normal, but Sue Heck
gets to dress like a
7 year old girl in
1995. No wonder she
doesn’t get a leg up
in life. Costume and
set designs aren’t
the only area of
concern… it’s kind
of a mock copy off
of the first season
of
Malcolm in the
Middle.
That was a sitcom
based on a normal
but dysfunctional
family. The mom
freaked out all the
time, one of the
kids was dumb and
teased the other
two. They had a
genius… there are
lots of similarities
though it is a
different show.
The
Heck’s are a middle
class family. They
have they’re ins and
outs. They’re all
unique in their own
ways but they’re all
fairly normal people
too. I’m not saying
that what happens to
the family from
episode to episode
happens to every
family, but it
happens to some and
it could happen to
everyone. The family
isn’t relatable from
character to
character, but the
family and how they
function is
definitely
relatable. That
relationship between
the characters and
the audience is
mostly due to a
fantastic writing
team that comes up
with outstanding
dialogue and core
ideas for the show.
There are moments
when the jokes miss
too, and those
moments are fixed by
the actors. That’s
really the secret to
a good TV show. You
have to have a great
writing team to come
up with the ideas,
but you have to have
a great set of
actors to keep
things together on
the screen when
everything doesn’t
come off as well as
it should. Patricia
Heaton is probably
the best out of
anyone on TV at
this. She gets some
cliché jokes at
times where it’s a
mother screaming too
much or freaking out
over something
small… and she makes
it work because
she’s got too much
charisma to let it
fail. That’s why
The
Middle
is a great show.
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