THE FAMILY IS MODERN; THE JOKES ARE OLD-FASHIONED: Since Alan isn't covering it any more, I thought I'd put up a thread here on Modern Family. I really was of two minds about last night's episode. On the one hand, if I were compiling a list of plot devices that really should be put out of their misery, it would include at least four from last night: (1) walking in on parents having sex; (2) the mis-sent email; (3) the child's friend who is more important to the parents than to the kid; and (4) the impossible reservation/ticket. You can grimace and do one of those from time to time, but putting them all together in a single episode (along with the comedy-of-errors miscommunication gag, which at least is versatile enough not to make my list) just seems lazy. It's like ordering a sitcom off of a dim sum cart.
On the other hand, you can't fault most of the execution. Gloria's plaintive "I sended ... come back" was perfectly delivered, and the show really pushed the boundaries of what you can imply with the blocking as the kids opened the door and again with Luke's comment about it. So even though I thought the plotting was lazy, the Cam-Mitchell plot was grating, and Manny's absence was regrettable, the other two stories made me laugh pretty hard.
Another thought as I was typing this: the popularity of this show is a bit strange, because the show's viewpoint is so narrowly dialed into a narrow demographic -- the well-to-do West LA professional. Cam and Mitchell's status obsession, their repeated use of Lily to promote their own interests, the preschool application story that Sepinwall hated so much, and the Jay-Gloria relationship, to name a few examples, are all things that I associate so much with daily LA life and that I see far less of where I live now. Are those things really relatable outside of LA?
