Modern Family, "Travels with Scout": I am not left-handed, either

A review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I lose the deposit on that fog machine...

I often have less to say about the episodes of "Modern Family" that work than the ones that don't, and since two and a half out of the three main stories this week were very funny, I'm going to be brief.

Cameron's brief drumming career was a nice example of the writers striking gold with an unexpected character crossover, with Dylan and his bandmates briefly being awed by Cam's stick skills, and Mitchell and Hayley bonding over their totally rockin' boyfriends. Jay's fiasco with the slasher film was a good story where good intentions (and a mental image of Mitchell's friend as a sweet kid who would never star in such a movie) led to increasingly bad consequences (and which gave Rico Rodriguez his usual chances to shine as Manny), and in the main plot, I enjoyed both Claire's growing affection for Scout and Luke unintentionally acting like a dog.

But as to the main part of the main plot, I think I find Fred Willard a little too perfect in his casting as Phil's dad, if that makes sense. If you wanted to cast someone who'd be Phil plus a few decades, you go get Willard, who's made a career out of playing men who think they're much funnier than they actually are. But the idea that Phil is the way he is because his dad is exactly like him, while logical, was maybe too on-the-nose to click for me, and I spent a lot of the Willard scenes waiting for the episode to swing around to someone else's story.

Still, very funny overall ("What's up with 21 Jump Street?"). What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Game Changer": The book of Jobs

A review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as it's go time...

Product integration has become a necessary evil in the TV business. As more and more people gain the ability to skip over the ads that air in between segments of TV shows, the networks have to counter by inserting the ads into the shows. Some shows handle this well by turning it into a self-aware joke ("30 Rock"), and some clumsily and shamlessly throw in the plugs (there was an episode of "Heroes" where Claire got super-excited that HRG had specifically bought her some ugly car). Emily Nussbaum wrote a story last season where she looked at some of the highs and lows of this particular art form, but everyone agrees we're stuck with it.

And as product integration goes, this episode-long plug for the iPad was kind of icky. Yes, Phil has been established as a lover of gadgets, some more useful than others, and if the "Modern Family" writers had tried to - or been allowed to - let some of the other characters question the necessity of the iPad, even as Phil launched a passionate defense, it might have worked better. But devoting the main plot of an episode to Claire desperately trying to get Phil this awesome and super-popular gift, and then climaxing it with the entire cast standing around Phil's new iPad and oooh'ing and aah'ing? Ick. And I say this as someone whose hand is surgically glued to his iPhone.

Beyond that, though, "Game Changer" felt to me like one of the weaker episodes the show's done in a while. As with Phil's love of the iPad, most of the characterization was on-point (Cam's fierce protection of Lily, Manny and Jay's competitiveness, Alex trying to kill Luke), but it felt like there was something missing that I can't quite put my finger on. Like, I could intellectually appreciate why most of the jokes (Jay's disappointment at hearing the tool belt built a gift-wrapping station, or Phil declaring that the 11th birthday party was "when I knew I was funny") should have worked, but something got lost in translation from the page to the final production. I think the only time I laughed out loud was when Manny held out his wrist for the watch.

The characters are so lovingly-rendered that "Modern Family" has now reached the point where I enjoy an episode even if it doesn't make me chuckle much, but this definitely wasn't the follow-up to last week's great "Starry Night" that I was hoping for.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Starry Night": Change of a dress

A review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I sfather you to death...

"Starry Night" was a very strong episode, one that provided a nice balance of nuclear family unit action (the Dunphy parents help their kids with homework) and intermingled groupings (Mitchell getting zing'ed by Manny and Jay, Cameron overcompensating with Gloria) and had a lot of funny moments throughout.

There was a stretch of the season where scenes of the Dunphys by themselves really dragged (that, as much as anything, was the main reason I kept pushing to see the families interact more), but the writers have gotten better at making Phil not just be the idiot, and at using all three Dunphy kids both as foils for each other and their mom and dad. Luke was on fire in this episode, from him misunderstanding the concept of noise-canceling headphones at the beginning to him delivering the requisite heart-warming speech at the end and then turning it into a paranoid screed about aliens halfway through. (At this point, the warmth of the show should be so obvious to anyone watching that the only time I want to hear those voiceovers anymore is when the writers have a joke ready to undercut it like here, or like the time Dylan sang his song about wanting to do Hayley.) And the slapstick bits with Phil going for his sunglasses and then Claire wiping out on the bad step were both very well-choreographed, and then played by Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen.

The astronomy storyline was a nice example of how well the show can transcend sitcom cliches. I can think of many comedies where I would have groaned the second a gay character wound up wearing a dress, but here the humor was dry rather than broad, with Mitchell's complaint about how the dress made his hips look serving as a nice rejoinder to Gloria's earlier comment that anyone would look fabulous in it. The idea of Manny being a stepbrother to both Mitchell and Claire hasn't been explored in a while, but the idea of the usually serious and mature Manny zinging his (much) older brother because Jay told him it's what siblings do was a good running gag (particularly Manny reverting to his old self to say, "There's a line, Jay") and then in turn led to a nice moment for the two where cross-dressing Mitchell gave him a pep talk.

The first Cameron/Gloria team-up of the series wasn't as fabulous as I might have expected, but that turned out to be the whole point of the joke: Cam assumes they should be BFFs, but then gets so concerned about not screwing up the possibility that he keeps making things worse. This was a different side of Cam than we've seen, and as well-played by Eric Stonestreet as in the character's usual pathologically exuberant mode.

I also thought "Starry Night" did a better job than usual of letting jokes carry from one subplot to another, not just with things like Gloria's dress, but the moment where Luke compares Van Gogh to an insane-looking Mitchell, followed by an immediate cut to Mitchell looking insane after getting sprayed by the skunk.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Truth Be Told": Say goodbye to these!

A review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I recreate a faux pas...

"Truth Be Told" probably had too much going on, in that I didn't feel either of the Dunphy storylines so much came to an end as they ran out of time. (The Luke/Alex subplot in particular.) But it was still very funny, and a nice reminder that sometimes the singer matters more than the song, in that all of the stories were the kind I've seen a million times on other sitcoms, but worked due to the execution(*).

(*) And due to the format, of course. The pet funeral on a stage in front of a studio audience would have been painful, I think, but the quietness of it made it work.

With the show averaging 3-4 stories an episode, I tend to have my favorites, but this was the rare occasion where I felt all the plots were on par in terms of making me laugh. Just when I thought the Mitchell plot was lagging behind (since Mitchell is by design the straight man in that duo), we got the hilarious moment at the stoplight with Cam tricking Mitchell into doing the call-and-response from "Shout." Manny's story provided one great pet name after another (Shel Turtlestein is an awesome name), and another old-beyond-his-years moment for Manny as he stage-managed a dramatic confrontation with Jay in his bedroom, complete with interrogation lamp. (This was also a very good Gloria episode, between her knowing a faked crime scene when she saw one and the mourning head dress she wore to the funeral.)

Judy Greer was playing very much to type as Phil's crazy ex-girlfriend Denise, but of course she keeps getting these parts because she plays them so well, and I loved the running gag about reading Facebook messages in a sexy voice. And Alex's revenge prank on Luke was as funny as it was cruel. Poor, poor kid.

We've now had a few strong episodes in a row with the families largely separate, so hopefully I can retire that complaint. (Though I'm still looking forward to more intermingling in the future.)

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Fears": Under Ponce

A review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as you hand me the Itty-Bitty Book Light...

"Fears" was the first "Modern Family" in a while that I enjoyed a lot even though it kept the families separate (and, as often happened, sub-divided the Dunphy clan into two groups, this time by gender). I still prefer episodes where there's some crossover, as the unlikely combinations tend to feel fresher, but "Fears" (written by co-creator Steven Levitan, and directed by Reginald Hudlin) showed that there's still plenty to be done with the more traditional family units.

Cam and Mitchell's "mommy" panic was the broadest, and funniest, storyline of the night. Usually it's Phil who's inserting his foot deep into his mouth, Michael Scott-style, but here it was the guys' attempt to not sound racist even as they tried to pass the whole thing off on "the giant panda in the room" that was the pediatrician's Asian-ness. Loved Eric Stonestreet's pained delivery of "Mommy!" in the talking head after Lily said it a second time, as well as the payoff to the doctor's line about becoming an Asian stereotype, followed by her turning out to be a horrible driver.

Manny, meanwhile, is such an effective, unique character that he works in any combination, including with his mom and stepdad. That he has his own specific fishing outfit (with cap and cable-knit sweater) feels very Manny, as does Gloria assuring him that "your salmon is legendary." And I about did a spit take when Manny told Jay, "Wake up, old man!"

Though the male and female Dunphys were separate, I really appreciated the use of Claire's "three deep breaths" advice to tie the stories together, as we saw Luke do it before he dove under the house. That kind of subtle stuff works better for me at establishing the show's heart-warming side then the closing voiceovers do. And Luke and Phil make a great comedy team because Luke is so much his father's son. The tag at the end with them speculating on what they could buy with the hypothetical treasure in the attic was priceless.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "My Funky Valentine": Strangers in the night, removing clothing

Better late than never (thank you, blizzard), a quick review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I repurpose a boa...

Though the Dunphy kids were mostly sidelined, "My Funky Valentine" gave everyone else in the cast at least one moment to shine, whether it was Gloria's confusion about why David Brenner might be funny ("Does he have a mallet?") or Mitchell's supreme pleasure at getting to use his "SHAME!" closing argument on Manny's rival, or Cam getting deep into his role as the phone survey guy.

And speaking of role-playing, the episode's highlight - and probably the best sequence that the show has yet given Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell to play - was Claire and Phil's attempt to spice up Valentine's Day by pretending to be strangers, and all the ways it went right, then wrong, then right again.

However, the climax of that story with the escalator mishap was a little flat, in part because it felt like the kind of thing "I Love Lucy" might have done 55 years ago if Lucille Ball were allowed to refer to her panties. "Modern Family" comes from two veteran sitcom writers, and the dialogue (like Mitchell and Cam's "I had to settle" / "Your mom might think so, but many people think I'm a catch" exchange) often has the rhythms of a traditional sitcom, just disguised by the absence of a laughtrack. But much as I love a lot of the old sitcom tropes(*), I tend to enjoy this show the most when its comedy comes more from behavior than wacky hijinx. (That, or the hijinx have to be perfectly-executed, as they were in "Fizbo.")

(*) Speaking of which, Ken Levine has a really interesting post on his blog where he embeds one of the most famous scenes from "The Honeymooners" and asks, without judgment, whether people (particularly those too young to know or care about "The Honeymooners" legacy) find it funny. There is, of course, no right or wrong answer, but it's a fascinating snapshot of evolving comedy tastes and how a show that's inspired so many other shows can seem really flat to those who might only know it's descendants.

Still, a very funny episode, and worth if if for no other reason than Ty Burrell's amazed delivery of "This is way better than cheesey garlic bread!"

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Moon Landing": Po-lice that moostash!

A quick review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I blame the Latino driver...

"Moon Landing" was a mixed bag of an episode, I thought. There were plenty of great one-liners as usual - Phil comparing Jägermeister to a potion from a fairy tale, "only you don't wake up in a castle, you wake up in a frat house with a bad reputation" may be the funniest joke of the series so far - and some good bits of physical (Jay in the locker room with Cam) and behavioral (Manny stuffing his mouth with cupcakes to avoid his mom's wrath) comedy, yet something felt lacking in it.

The set-up of making the Dunphy house seem like a hellmouth for Minnie Driver's arrival was a little labored (and/or predictable); if not for the usual endearing goofiness from Dylan, and my love of mustache-related humor, I would have gotten very impatient with that storyline. Conversely, the resolutions to both Jay and Gloria's stories felt too abrupt.

(Also, Driver's non-regional American accent is distracting, as opposed to when she puts on a specific one, like on "The Riches." Neither is incredibly believable, but at least on "The Riches" I accepted it and moved on, where here I kept thinking, "Boy, Minnie's struggling with this, isn't she?")

The show has banked enough good will with me, though, that I'm fine with an episode that worked in the small moments but not in the bigger ones. The Jagermeister joke alone was worth the tune-in.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Fifteen Percent": What is hip?

A quick review of tonight's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I order a Sanka...

After a couple of sub-par episodes that largely kept the three families apart, "Modern Family" was back in terrific form tonight with an outing that had at least some interaction between Jay and Mitchell's families. And it was that interaction - first with Mitchell playing the gaydar prank on Jay, then with Cameron turning up to show that the poor Kristen Schaal character had no gaydar - that led to some of the episode's best moments and biggest laughs.

I get what Steve Levitan was saying about it feeling contrived if the families are all together too often. But with the three groups living so close together, and with all of them having different kinds of childcare needs, it doesn't feel contrived at all to have a few characters from different groups crossing paths every week.

At the same time, some of the funniest bits in "Fifteen Percent" happened when the groups were isolated from one another: Mitchell asking the car's voice recognition software to give him directions to Hell and the car responding with "Mexican food," or Schaal being freaked out by Manny's wise-beyond-his-years quality, or Phil and Claire, and then Claire and Hayley, celebrating home theater success(*) in parallel to the Cutters celebrating their win in The Little 500 at the end of "Breaking Away."(**)

(*) This may just be one of those stories I could relate to a little too well, as I periodically get calls at work, on business trips, etc., to walk people at my house through the various remote control procedures necessary to make our living room AV equipment work. If I ever get conked on the head and develop retrograde amnesia, we're all in trouble, viewing-wise.

(**) Why do so many of the best Underdog Sports Movies of all time take place in Indiana? You've got "Breaking Away" (with early roles for Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Christopher and Daniel Stern), "Hoosiers" and even "Rudy."

Levitan's script had a lot of fun with Chazz Palminteri obliviously doing and saying stereotypically gay things, and it also had two of the best punchlines of the series to date: Gloria explaining that "I come from a neighborhood with a lot of prostitutes," and Mitchell responding to the fiery bouquet by telling the florist, "Look at that: two things flaming at once."

Very, very funny episode.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family: Some thoughts from Steve Levitan

Didn't love last night's "Modern Family." Thought the Cam/Mitchell and Phil/Claire plots were very predictable and sitcom-y, and the Jay/Gloria/dog butler plot only worked because it was so silly (and the writing embraced that). But after the jump, I have some press tour thoughts from "Modern Family" co-creator Steve Levitan about several topics we've been discussing about the show over the course of this season...

On whether it's a documentary or not: Levitan said that in the original pitch, it was explicitly a documentary, made by a Dutch filmmaker named Geert Floorjte who had lived with Jay's family as a teenage exchange student and developed a crush on Claire (while Mitchell had a crush on him). In the end, he and Christopher Lloyd decided it was an unnecessary component of the show - especially since they weren't sure how much they liked the idea of their characters letting themselves be filmed.

"It’s a conversation we have a lot," he said. "Is it a true documentary, or is it a family show done documentary-style? I prefer the latter because I don’t like those families who let cameras in their houses in real life. I just can’t stand those shows. So it makes me — it would make me question them a little bit. Who would allow all of this to be filmed by a crew? So I like the idea that it’s just our style of storytelling."

On the heartwarming voiceovers that end each episode: When I asked Levitan what he'd learned over the course of the season, he admitted that he and Lloyd are striving for "a constant balance about how much heart. I think we’re much sappier than we realized we were. We thought we were very cynical, typical comedy writers, and we find ourselves really enjoying those moments where the show sort of sneaks up on you and makes you feel something. And I think that we’re just — one of the biggest challenges for us right now is finding the right level of that so that we don’t overdo it, so that it doesn’t become expected that there will always be a very sweet wrap-up at the end."

On the balance between episodes where the three families intermingle and ones (like this one) where they're mostly separate: I had recorder issues, so I can't give you the exact quote, but Levitan said they don't want to mix the families too often because "it would feel contrived." But he also said they were having a lot of fun with the combinations, and have been surprised how well some of them (like Gloria and Cameron in an upcoming episode) work.

Hopefully, they can find ways to do mixing on a small scale (the best scene tonight, I thought, was Jay and Mitchell commiserating about their great-on-paper spouses) even if they're understandably reluctant to do large family gatherings each week.

Modern Family, "Up All Night": The family stone

A quick review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I put the weasel in my pants...

"Up All Night" was yet another "Modern Family" episode to keep the three families separate (save for Phil doing magic for Cam in the tag), and yet another episode that was much less engaging than the ones that either put the whole family together or mix them up into odd combinations.

The pilot showed that the show can, in fact, be very funny even when the three groups aren't interacting (or aren't interacting until the end), so it's not that these characters don't automatically work together. I think the issue is that episodes that take that approach tend to feel a bit more complacent, willing to just do variations on the same handful of jokes for the running time. So while it was funny at first that Phil was afraid of Claire being around the hot firemen, or that Cam refused to go along with Mitchell's plan to Ferber-ize baby Lily - and while some individual jokes within those stories worked, like Cam explaining Lily's love of "Scarface" - overall the episode felt flatter and more repetitive than the show is in stronger episodes like "Fizbo" or "The Incident."

Jay's story was the least overtly comic, but it was also the strongest of the three because it didn't just sit there. It had a beginning (Jay doesn't trust Javier), a middle (Jay lets himself get charmed by Javier), and an end (Jay discovers, as Gloria and Manny did long before, that Javier will always let you down), and was well-played by Ed O'Neill, Benjamin Bratt, Sofia Vergara and Rico Rodriguez.

Also, I'd like them to decide on a consistent plan for the documentary framework (or whatever it is, since the characters don't usually react to the cameras the way people on "The Office" or "Parks and Recreation" do). Phil's talking head about his "golden ticket" clearly took place after he left the hospital - and, therefore, after he had already lost the ticket because Claire got a look at the hot blonde sisters - yet Ty Burrell played the first half of it like he still had metaphorical possession of the thing. If the talking heads are part of a documentary being filmed about the families, then they need to be treated as such, and make sense in the context of the events happening around them. If the idea is that they're more abstract, and an excuse for the characters to share their thoughts directly with the audience, then that needs to be made more clear, in the manner that fourth-wall-breaking sitcoms like "Titus" or "The Bernie Mac Show" (or even the awful "The War at Home") have done in the past. Because the current approach is just distracting.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Undeck the Halls": Christmas and me are through

Not much to say about a pretty lackluster "Modern Family" last night. At this point, it's pretty clear that the show is at its weakest when the three family units are off in their own separate orbits, even if certain characters (Cameron, Manny) are good for a few chuckles no matter what group they're in.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Fizbo": The day the clown cried

Thoughts on tonight's "Modern Family" just as soon as I drive through neighborhoods that have only recently been gentrified...

Thirty seconds into Fizbo, I tweeted an objection to "Modern Family" being the latest show to use the very tired in media res opening device. (See Tuesday's "V" for a recent hackneyed example.) By the time we found out why they were in the hospital, though, my objections had gone away. For once, the non-chronological storytelling served a purpose: adding a nice comic kick to the party as we wondered if the crossbow, the rock wall, the poisonous scorpion, Dylan's mayonnaise allergy or something else would land a character in the hospital.

At this point, in fact, I may just need to start putting some real trust in the "Modern Family" creators. I'm not going to love ever episode (as I didn't the Ed Norton stuff last week), but part of what makes the show so much fun is how it takes things that seem so familiar from other sitcoms - the clueless dad, the party that gets out of control, the bickering siblings, the outrageous uncle - and makes them all feel fresh.

The highlight of "Fizbo" was, of course, Fizbo himself, and how seriously Cam/Eric Stonestreet threw himself into the part. Every time I think that the contrast of Cam's gregarious nature and Mitchell's more introverted, judgmental qualities is going to get old, we get a hysterical talking head like the one where Cameron outlined the four types of clowns, followed by Mitchell creating the marvelous assembly of words that is "weird gay clown uncle."

Rico Rodriguez continues to be wonderful as Manny. The character doesn't know how to tell the Interrupting Cow joke (or its funnier/more aggressive spin-off, Interrupting Starfish), but Rodriguez can even find a way to make Manny's sad bouncing funny. (Gloria being ogled by the dads was more predictable, but when you put Sofia Vergara on a show with a bouncy castle, some things just have to happen the way they're gonna, I suppose.)

We got a more sarcastic side of Phil than usual (I liked him offering to go on a supply run to the 1950s to get Claire some more crafts), which then nicely offset his pathological clown fear.

A very funny, very satisfying episode, and one that'll hold me until the next new one in two weeks.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Great Expectations": Nobody gets off The Rock

Spoilers for last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I slut it up with Driving Miss Daisy...

The concept of sweeps months (using November, February and May to help set ad rates for the next year) is outdated and silly, but the networks still pay attention to them because their affiliates do, and that means we get a certain amount of traditional sweeps stunt programming, like bringing in guest stars like Elizabeth Banks and Edward Norton to hang with the "Modern Family" regulars.

Now, I'm always happy to see either of them. Though "Scrubs" never knew quite what to do with her, Banks always brings a spark to the stereotypical girlfriend roles she has to play in the movies, and any chance to see Norton display a lighter side (ala "Keeping the Faith") is welcome.

That said, I thought Banks fit in much better last night. Norton got to wear the floppy '80s haircut and speak in a (mostly consistent) silly accent, but his storyline was pretty clearly an excuse to bring in a name guest star and let him be goofy. Phil and Claire had a moment at the end - and it was a rare Phil story that gave some hints as to why Claire would want to be with him - but it was mainly about the spectacle of Norton doing a private bass concert of Spandau Ballet tunes.

Banks' plot, on the other hand, felt more organic, and the sort of thing the show could and would have done even with a lesser-known guest star. Every new parent, gay or straight, struggles with maintaining a good relationship with their friends who are single and/or don't have kids. It was nice to see glimpses of a less responsible Mitchell and Cam - when Sal asks Mitchell if he wants to feel her new breasts, the usually uptight Mitchell says, "I'm gay, not dead!" - before their paternal instincts kicked in. And Cam's First Child Syndrome theory put a nice bow on the whole thing - Sal's not (that) bad, just understandably jealous.

Frankly, though, my favorite subplot of the whole episode was Jay's Night, which just had a bunch of our regular characters bouncing off each other: Gloria sounding like she's being strangled (and, briefly, sounding like she's about to sing the theme to "The Great White North") as she sings to the baby, Manny crushing on his cousin (and Jay calling him "Jethro" in response), and, especially, Jay's superhuman ability to stay one step ahead of Haley.

They've done such a good job in short order of establishing this ensemble and showing how different configurations of it work that guest stars often seem besides the point. I'm not saying the show shouldn't have them. The Shelley Long episode was one of the best so far, and both Banks and Norton were funny last night. I just want it to be an occasional thing, that's all.

What did everybody else think?