Going quietly crazy having been locked-down with your family for too long? We recommend hiding in a cupboard and enjoying twenty minutes of laughter at another family’s dysfunctional shenanigans.
Set in suburbia the show follows three families all united by one man: Jay Pritchett. He’s the stereotypical dad – he was too busy running a successful business to make room for his kids’ emotions and is usually found sipping whiskey and puffing a cigar. Having gone through a divorce, he’s now got a gorgeous, younger, Colombian wife, and her young son in tow. Down the road lives his adult son Mitch and his partner Cam, and a bit further down his daughter Clare, her eccentric husband Phil, and their three rowdy kids. The show really lives true to its title: this is a thoroughly Modern Family.
And they are hilarious. The combination of quirky characters – alongside brilliant and wonderfully ludicrous plotlines – will have you consistently chuckling away through the eleven seasons. And it’s made all the more joyous in that as each season goes by, we get to watch the kids grow up, moving with them through the teen years, college, first jobs, ridiculous relationships and into adulthood. You’re bound to form an attachment with them, and if you don’t shed a tear at some point during the series, we’re not sure you’re human.
As far as family-friendly viewing goes, this is a great option to have you cackling with your kids. Whilst the cracks keep coming, they’re mostly clean and won’t have your teenagers wincing from the sofa from sex references.
Now, it’s not all about awards, but we should note that Modern Family has been nominated for 80 Emmy awards, 22 of which it has won. Those numbers speak for themselves. And, in The Telegraph Lucy Mangan wrote a whole article titled “Why we all love Modern Family,” and it would be rude of us not to include a quote. She says that it “perfectly reflects the times we live in,” and that “by the exquisite crafting of its throwaway lines shall ye know a sitcom, and Modern Family’s are up there with the best.” And she’s not alone in her thinking – The Times’s Hugo Rifkind calls it “one of the most reliably funny sitcoms out there,” whilst Amy Raphael in The Guardian says the show is “unique in its refusal to ask the audience to judge its characters.”
First shown September 2009.
