"Modern Family" Renewed For 11th & Final Season at ABC
by Nellie Andreeva
February 5, 2019


It’s official — ABC’s flagship comedy series "Modern Family" will wrap its run after one more season. The Emmy-winning family comedy has been picked up for an eleventh and final season, the network announced at TCA.

I hear it will consist of at least 18 episodes and could expand to 22 episodes.




Ten seasons in, "Modern Family" remains ABC’s top rated comedy (2.1 adults 18-49 rating in Live+3) and second highest rated series on the network only behind "Grey’s Anatomy" (tied with "The Good Doctor", "The Bachelor" and "The Conners").

“Chris and Steve have created one of the most seminal and iconic comedies in television history,” said Karey Burke, president, ABC Entertainment. “In its final season, there will be more milestone events that anyone who has been a fan of the series won’t want to miss.”




“For 10 years, our characters have bravely faced turning points in life and moved through them to great personal enrichment; we have chosen a different path by doing one more season of Modern Family,” said Lloyd.

Added Levitan, “Even after 10 years together, we realized there are still some things our writers don’t yet know about each other’s sex lives.”

https://deadline.com/2019/02/modern-family-renewed-11th-final-season-abc-1202549814/

I had a good feeling that it would be coming to an end.

I admit it's not as good as it used to be, but I'm glad it's gonna go 11 seasons. MASH, Cheers, Frasier all went 11, and all 4 shows are immortal in my opinion. I hope they go out with a bang instead of a boom in the series finale.

11 seasons in the same timeslot is crazy. That might be a record for sitcoms. Even Cheers moved time slots in season 2.

Modern Family co-creator: "Our number one focus is to end strong with a great finale" next season (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/modern-family-final-season-preview-steve-levitan-interview-1208789)

Currently, the plan is to do a shortened 18-episode 11th and final season, says Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan, in an interview about last night's Season 10 finale and the ABC sitcom's future. "For quite a while I thought season 10 would be it for us," he says. "I really did. Earlier on, starting about a year or two years ago, I really thought that was the logical place to end it. Toward the end of last season some people started talking about, "You know what? We could do one more year." The studio wanted it, the network wanted it. The cast seemed happy and eager to do it. Our crew certainly wanted it. So we were open to it at that point. There was a lot of talk about it — you know, 'Can we make sure that we can still end strong?' And we felt that we could, so we agreed to keep it going. We decided to work out a bunch of details. That took a while, but that's the plan."

ALSO:

Sarah Hyland talks giving birth on the season finale (https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/08/modern-family-finale-sarah-hyland-haley-birth-episode/)
Modern Family hits a season finale low (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/modern-family-finale-goes-low-tv-ratings-wednesday-may-8-2019-1209118)

In other news, the cast tried to recreate a publicity photo from 10 years ago... the key word in that sentence is "tried."


https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/modern-family-cast-recreate-photo-from-when-show-started-10-years-ago-as-the-prepare-to-say-goodbye/ar-AAFa4vr?ocid=spartandhp

SPECIAL COMMENTARY: Modern Family - A Complicated History (https://benjamonsterstv.blogspot.com/2020/04/special-commentary-modern-family.html)

When I started this blog in Fall 2010, I was recently graduated from college. I wasn't watching as many current shows as I do now but made a plan to watch more and start reviewing them on this blog. One reason I was excited about doing that was because several shows I liked had premiered in 2009-10, chief among them Modern Family.

When Modern Family premiered in September 2009, ABC's comedy department was in shambles. Sure, they had successful dramas like Lost and Grey's Anatomy but they had nothing to speak of in the comedy department. The past couple years had seen tired sitcoms like According to Jim, niche ones like Better Off Ted and The Knights of Prosperity and dumb ones like Cavemen and Carpoolers. ABC knew things needed to be different and they bravely launched a lineup of all new comedies on Wednesday night. The other shows were star vehicles for Kelsey Grammar, Patricia Heaton and Courteney Cox as they returned to TV with Hank, The Middle and Cougar Town.

And then there was Modern Family. ABC loved the show so much that it gave it the 9pm anchor slot and showed the entire pilot at its Upfronts presentation that spring. It was a critically acclaimed darling from the start and instantly broke out as a hit with one of the best comedy pilots of all time. The rest is history. Modern Family went on to win five straight Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series and ABC became the home of family comedies, a title it still holds over a decade later with shows that have shown all kinds of TV families, just as Modern did. Early on, Modern Family could do no wrong in my eyes. The adult characters were so fresh and funny, the kids were adorably charming, the situations were extremely clever and the jokes were aplenty. When I started this blog, I probably would have said it was my favorite current show on TV.

I probably started to turn on Modern Family sooner than a lot of critics did because I didn't think its last couple Emmy wins were warranted. It is probably the strongest example of me watching a show simply to see it through. I haven't really enjoyed the show in about seven years. Sure, it still has its moments but those moments have gotten fewer and further between with each passing year (until this current final season, which I think is a step up from recent seasons but nowhere near its peak). The child stars except for Sarah Hyland have turned into bad actors and the great adult cast has gotten tired and settled into caricatures. The plots that once felt so clever started to feel awfully contrived. I don't know that the writing really got that much worse as much as it just never evolved. Its early companion, The Middle, ended up being the much better show in my opinion though that seemed laughable at the beginning.

So tonight, Modern Family says farewell and I'll be watching but with mixed feelings. There's certainly an element of sadness just because these characters have been a part of my life for so long. But it's complicated feelings because of how the show has been for so long now. I can't discount how influential it was and how great it was at its best. But I also can't forget how quickly it became tired. It's without a doubt going to be mentioned as one of the defining network comedies of this era and it deserves that. But it couldn't do what other long, long running network shows like Cheers and Friends could do. It couldn't sustain it for a decade or more, not even close.