Once More ... with Feeling

I am not sure I ever saw the original series finale of Malcolm in the Middle. It felt like one of those shows that simply ran forever — seven seasons, then reruns, then streaming — and when they announced a revival, it almost felt too soon, notwithstanding Bryan Cranston’s intervening Breaking Bad years.

But it’s been two decades. And now it’s back with four new episodes centered on Hal and Lois’s 40th anniversary, and that feels right. A full-on reboot might just dissolve unnoticeably into the blur of all those original seasons. The novelty would wear off, and before you knew it, we’d be three seasons deep into a late-2020s series with a decidedly 2000s sensibility — and not in a good way.

That’s part of what makes Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair work so well. It makes no attempt to update its sensibility. Everyone is 20 years older, of course, and even Lois’s positive pregnancy test from the series finale has materialized as Kelly, a wise-beyond-their-years non-binary teenager. But the brand of joke hasn’t changed: we still see entirely too much of Hal’s body; he’s still obsessed with his wife; Reese still runs pranks; Francis is still a screw-up (now with a pregnant wife); and Dewey, well, he’s played by someone else entirely.

And then there’s Malcolm, who has spent the last many years avoiding the “middle” by moving two layovers away, becoming a single father (the mother left after three days), acquiring a great girlfriend, and essentially constructing a secret life far from his family — whom he refuses to see, lest he revert into the temperamental spaz of his youth. Only he keeps finding ways to revert into the temperamental spaz of his youth anyway.

The first three episodes bounce between Malcolm, his daughter (a Malcolm-like outsider at school) and girlfriend back in his city, and home base, where Dewey and Kelly are revenge-pranking each other, Francis is angling for his mother’s affection, and Lois is orchestrating the 40th anniversary party. Hal is banned from helping on the day of the party, so he spends the lead-up love-bombing a mostly exasperated Lois with enormous, semi-destructive romantic gestures. Same as it ever was — except that the fourth episode, set at the party itself, is genuinely touching in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Malcolm in the Middle-esque to the end, but I think I may have actually teared up.

I won’t give too much away, except to say that most of the living supporting cast makes an appearance (yes, even Stevie), and it all feels like old times — only Hal and Lois are older and grayer, while the kids are adults still mostly acting like their younger selves. At just four 25-minute episodes, the revival gets in, gets out, and feels like exactly the kind of treat that knows better than to overstay its welcome.