For an entire generation, of which the author of these lines is part, Malcolm (in the Middle of its original title) is a Proust madeleine reinforced by its multiple reruns. The kind of timeless series of which we can, even today, come across an episode by chance by skipping and dropping the remote in front of it. We had left Frankie Muniz, Jane Kaczmarek or Bryan Cranston continue their careers in 2006, some with more success. But 20 years later, Hulu (via Disney+), the Original creator Linwood Boomer and almost the entire cast return In Malcolm: Nothing has changed.
Four episodes of less than half an hour eachon paper, we cannot speak of a revival ambition like Scrubs, The House Party, Dexter, the future Alert to Malibu and many others. We are more in a moment of reunion à la Friends, but under the prism of fiction. For an in-between result? We take stock of the successes and failures of Malcolm: Nothing has changed.
Top: a return that manages to justify itself
It is always difficult to compose a credible scenario to justify finding characters twenty years later. Here we are approaching the Lois and Hal’s fortieth wedding anniversary and they want all family and friends to be present. Except that Malcolm doesn’t want to go. And for good reason, he has been trying to keep them away from his life for several years, hiding from them that he has a teenage daughter and a new romantic relationship.
In the intention, there is something to tell around Malcolm’s parenthood and his desire to cut ties. As if it had been two decades since Lois revealed her plan to make him the next President of the United States. Did the latter succeed or fail?
Flop: Malcolm: Nothing has changed and that’s the problem
Except that the synopsis is perhaps the only thing new. The cast has aged, but the characters have remained in cryogenic sleep and it makes for a rather bizarre spectacle: seeing older actors playing roles written more than twenty years ago. Linwood Boomer is stuck in a nostalgia bubble where his creations have not aged a bitwould not have lived without him. It feels like we literally left them yesterday and found them completely rinsed.
This is where we hit a sensitive point. What do we expect from a revival? In itself, revisiting what you once loved. Except that the more the years pass, the more difficult it is to make these reunions natural. Malcolm: Nothing has changed shows envy, but is unable to move beyond the memory and, even worse, the capitalization of a memory. Boomer lives up to his name and has no idea what to do with a now-adult cast. There is nothing funny about seeing actors struggle in the shifting sand of a collective memory where no one has evolved and where we do everything as before, with the added bonus of getting old.
Top: new members of the family
Faced with a old cast trapped in poorly written roles that they no longer masterwe must salute the freshness of the new faces, taking full conscious advantage of this creative freedom towards them. And we’re not talking about Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, replacing Erik Per Sullivan in the role of a Dewey who is as little present as he is annoying.
Non, we salute more the performance of Vaughan Murraethe sixth child of the siblings (Lois discovered she was still pregnant at the end of the initial series), who quickly imposes her personality and fits perfectly into such a dysfunctional family. Same story when it comes to Malcolm’s private life where young Keeley Karsten and Kiana Madeira have instant chemistry and seem to have a lot to tell.
Flop: deadly boring
Where the episodes of Malcolm were mainly each centered on short or maximum two-part plots, Nothing has changed intends to tell the same story over four episodes. A different rhythm that Linwood Boomer and his teams absolutely do not master. This revival wants to say a lot, even though it says nothing. However, there is no shortage of subplots, such as Malcolm and his relationship problems, his daughter trying to adapt to high school, Hal facing existential questions, etc.
Except that he seems to be aware from the start of his inability to develop them correctly in an hour (in total), but does not try to abandon them nonetheless. Result, they are good on the screen, but are standing still. We have the feeling that the project started with an idea and then they didn’t know what to do with it.. Is this an ephemeral return in the form of homage as the final meeting suggests? Is it a desire to relaunch something as Leah’s entire arc suggests?
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And in the middle, we have jokes for the sake of making jokes, often lame and forced. We crack a smile occasionally, almost out of spite, and we let the discomfort settle inalmost embarrassed by all this effort deployed on the screen, which constantly falls into absolute emptiness. We just want to relaunch Malcolm than to see this Nothing has changed stop as quickly as possible.
Flop: the new paragon of free cameos
We’re not going to lie to each other, Malcolm: Nothing has changed is especially the opportunity to see personalities, most of whom have left the profession, come together in a good atmosphere. The problem is that through the prism of fiction, we need a binder, something capable of holding all these pieces of string together. Boomer gives us a spectacular “seen and doesn’t care” where it sends consistency to the bottom of the hole.
Malcolm: Nothing has changed is the Avengers gathering free cameo. We already suspected this a little when the faces present in the credits were announced during the months of development, but we still hoped that there would be a reason for all this. No. None. We bring everyone back, we don’t know how, we especially don’t know why, we just know that there were checks.
Even among the main characters, there is a clear gap in involvement. Where Malcolm may have his arc, how can we not be sad to see Reese and Francis scrounging up the remains? And since there is no space for six children, we exclude Jamie and Dewey, simpler. Everything sounds false, everything sounds like recovery, everything sounds like a project designed solely to play on an iconic name and create buzz. At the end credits, we are just sad. Sad to see that the entire cast seems delighted to have this second chance together and that this revival does not honor her or the original series.
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