Starring:
- Frankie Muniz – Malcolm
- Jane Kaczmarek – Lois
- Justin Berfield – Reese
- Erik Per Sullivan – Dewey
- Bryan Cranston – Hal
- Christopher Kennedy Masterson – Francis
- Craig Lamar Traylor – Stevie Kenarban
- Catherine Lloyd Burns – Caroline Miller
- Vincent Berry – Dave Spath
As somebody who grew up during the 2000s, there are very few television series that I associate with my formative years more than Malcolm in the Middle, and indeed it was a huge hit with my generation. Yet nearly a quarter-century after ‘Pilot’ aired, the television sitcoms to have premiered during the 2000s that people still talk to great extents about are How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. However, Malcolm in the Middle has retained a huge fanbase, thanks in no small part to having been an enormous hit during its original run from 2000-2006, which is fairly impressive given that Fox originally just intended for this series to be a mid-season replacement for Futurama Season 2. Heck, Malcolm in the Middle ended up lasting way longer than Futurama‘s original run with the network, and the initial episodes made 14-year-old lead actor Frankie Muniz the biggest child star in America within a matter of weeks.
And now for the premise. Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) is a frustrated 11-year-old who constantly bickers with his older brother Reese (Justin Berfield) and is regularly tasked with looking after his younger brother Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan), now that eldest brother Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson) has been sent to military school. Their home is ruled by their hot-headed and nagging mother Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), whom their much more relaxed father Hal (Bryan Cranston) usually sides with out of fear; and to top it all off, Malcolm also gets picked on by school bully Dave Spath (Vincent Berry). However, when the school discover that Malcolm has a genius-level IQ, he is moved to the programme for gifted children (known as ‘the Krelboynes’) – an environment in which he may finally be able to discover his true potential, but which he does not want to be part of due to ‘the Krelboynes’ being the social outcasts of the school.
As that premise indicates, by the end of ‘Pilot’ it is clear why the series is called Malcolm in the Middle rather than simply Malcolm. The titular schoolboy really is caught up in the middle of a very chaotic household, although it is made apparent early on that (no matter how much they bicker) he is closest to Reese due to them being closest in age, and both of them looking up to Francis and delighted whenever he phones home. There is mostly focus on Malcolm and Reese squabbling and the formidable prankster force that they could be is not shown in ‘Pilot’, but in that regard they are ultimately a very realistic pair of siblings as they know exactly how to wind each other up but can be a united front when needs must – normally when facing the wrath of their mother. Speaking of the parents, although he appears much more briefly than Lois, it becomes apparent that Hal regularly gets caught in the middle – indeed throughout the series, he regularly felt Lois was overreacting to their sons’ shenanigans but did not want to risk facing her wrath himself, and Bryan Cranston demonstrates terrific comedic abilities through his line delivery and body language, eight years before he proved his true dramatic chops with Breaking Bad. And then of course, Malcolm also feels in the middle at school – he wants to have fun during recess like any other kid and not be a social outcast, but once his genius-level IQ is established, it is alluded to that ‘the Krelboynes’ (despite being social outcasts) will offer the intellectual challenge that he wants which the standard school curriculum cannot provide him with.
Through all of this it becomes clear why Malcolm is so frustrated, whilst these scenes also characterise him as somebody whose mouth operates five seconds ahead of his brain, which leads to him alienating people. However, he is shown to have a good heart as he cares for his family, no matter how much they irritate him, and is genuinely remorseful when he hurts the feelings of best friend and fellow ‘Krelboyne’ Stevie (Craig Lamar Traylor), and strives to atone for his mistake. These are all traits that Malcolm would retain to varying degrees throughout the series’ run and Frankie Muniz plays them all with a really naturalistic quality, great energy, and sublime comic timing and delivery, in so doing demonstrating real talent that all of these years later make it abundantly clear why the initial episodes made him such an in-demand actor during the early/mid-2000s. And actually, all of the cast here give very naturalistic performances, to the point that we are wholly convinced by even the characters’ most exaggerated and over-the-top qualities – we buy the brothers’ dynamic and also totally get why they are so terrified of Lois…we become slightly terrified of Lois.
Despite giving naturalistic turns, however, Justin Berfield and Erik Per Sullivan do not get that much to work with and certainly receive the least characterisation of anyone in the family. Throughout the series, Reese would be characterised as the idiotic brother, his dim-wittedness regularly making things more difficult and frustrating for Malcolm, but in ‘Pilot’ he is simply the one who most enjoys pressing Malcolm’s buttons – it makes their sibling dynamic more plausible but is hardly compelling characterisation. Similarly, Dewey in ‘Pilot’ is constantly off in his own world, being what us Brits would refer to as a “space cadet”, and whilst Sullivan does play this very convincingly, it is also not compelling characterisation, which is made more apparent by the rest of the series in which Dewey became an increasingly complex and nuanced character who had hidden depths, whilst also having a role in his older brothers’ practical jokes.
Altogether, ‘Pilot’ works as a sitcom pilot and will make viewers confident that Malcolm in the Middle will be an entertaining sitcom. It may not make you roar with laughter in the way that most subsequent episodes would – not least due to there being scarce focus on the brothers’ shenanigans, Hal’s boyish antics, or the ways in which Francis could influence his younger brothers from afar – but there is a constant stream of amusing gags made all the more enjoyable by the cast’s natural comic timing and delivery. Additionally, it establishes the types of humour that will be most central to the series and a number of components to the central family’s dynamic, as well as a very different trope for the series – Malcolm’s breaking of the fourth wall by explaining his thought process and/or establishing backstory aspects to the viewer, directly to the camera, in which Muniz is very expressive. As such ‘Pilot’ established Malcolm in the Middle as a very fresh and different sitcom and, although having some notable flaws in Reese and Dewey’s characterisations especially, made for very entertaining television that launched Frankie Muniz to stardom.
VERDICT: 7/10
Pete Kirkpatrick's Reviews 