The title of Disney+’s “Malcolm in the Middle” revival paraphrases its subtitle — “Life’s Still Unfair” — from a line of the They Might Be Giants theme song (reprised here by Drama Dolls). But the show’s reappearance after two decades suggests another line: “Can you repeat the question?”
The question, repeated by many, many sitcom revivals of the streaming era, is Why?
Why this? Why now? Why at all? This four-episode postscript, arriving Friday, is full of affection for the chaotic, dysfunctional clan at its center. But as with most of its peers, its story doesn’t offer much more of an answer than: because we could, and most of the cast was available.
The original “Malcolm,” created by Linwood Boomer, was the story of a family (of no officially revealed surname) with more kids than money, and more conflicts than anything. The mother, Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), could be a fierce advocate or a fearsome enforcer; the father, Hal (Bryan Cranston, pre- “Breaking Bad”), was the show’s squishy marshmallow heart. Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), a child prodigy, narrated in an agitated direct-to-camera monologue.
“Malcolm” had a frenetic ska bounce and a taste for slapstick. (The “previously” segment at the beginning of “Life’s Still Unfair,” one of its funniest bits, is a cavalcade of punches and kicks in the groin.)
But it also had depth of character. Lois and Hal had a refreshingly intense, passionate relationship that didn’t revolve solely around their kids. And for a zany comedy, the series had a psychologically astute sense of the individual dynamics and fraught histories among Hal, Malcolm, and the other siblings Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson), Reese (Justin Berfield) and Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan).
By “Life’s Still Unfair,” the family is a little bigger, but it still is what it was. There are two other sibs, Jamie (Anthony Timpano), born during the original series’s run and now serving in the Coast Guard, and Kelly (Vaughan Murrae), a nonbinary child whose birth was hinted at by a positive pregnancy test in the series finale.
Malcolm, meanwhile, is a single dad who has enforced distance between himself and his parents for years to keep his sanity. His teenage daughter, Leah (Keeley Karsten), inherited his brains, his anxiety and his penchant for breaking the fourth wall. (At times the revival seems like half a pilot for a spinoff centered on her.)
Their neurotic peace is threatened, however, when Malcolm gets an invitation to Hal and Lois’ 40th anniversary party. This extravagant, militarily planned affair drives the plot, setting up various family members and past characters for spectacular collisions, like the pieces in an elaborate domino stunt.
There’s a lot of family and show history to service in four short episodes, and the strain shows. The limited series quickly sets up sitcom subplots — a revenge subplot, a “somebody accidentally gets high” subplot — and contrives reasons for fan favorites to reappear. Few “Malcolm” memories go un-referenced, but the revival never has a chance to develop into its own thing.
There’s also an uncanniness to trying to recreate the dynamics of a kids’ comedy with adult characters. The siblings often seem less grown-up than simply enlarged into adult-shaped versions of their recognizable selves. (Dewey was recast with Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, who appears mostly by remote video, styled like an adult wearing a Dewey costume.)
Muniz plays Malcolm with the same franticness and exaggerated facial expressions, which made him seem funny and overwhelmed as a kid but unhinged as a grown man. The characters do have more leeway to swear now, for what that’s worth.
Some of the new cast members are charming when they have a second or two in the spotlight, especially Karsten and Murrae. And the episodes show off Kaczmarek’s volcanic outbursts and Cranston’s comedic gymnastics, lately overshadowed by his acclaim in TV and stage drama. Can you be entirely mad at a show with a fantasy sequence that allows Bryan Cranston to beat up another Bryan Cranston with a bowling pin and a toaster? No, you cannot.
But sitcom revivals usually succeed as original works when they can engage with how time changes people — in a funny way, but a meaningful one. “King of the Hill” did that, as did “Party Down’; the inessential “Scrubs” comeback at least tries to. That’s what it means to have a story that’s worth returning to tell.
The theme of “Life’s Still Unfair,” as the subtitle suggests, is ultimately that family dynamics stay eternal, even as a family adds members. The people you love drive you nuts the way they did 20 years ago, and they probably will 20 years hence. That’s a perfectly reasonable position for a sitcom to have! But it’s also an argument for letting the original stand.
That said, maybe the series’s best feature is its brevity: It’s a short, sweet-tart reunion that’s not trying to outdo the original. Is that enough to satisfy anyone besides superfans?
Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know. Can you repeat the question? Doubtless another resurrected sitcom will before long.
James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times. He writes reviews and essays with an emphasis on television as it reflects a changing culture and politics.
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