10 episodes of Modern Family that show why it’s still one of TV’s biggest hits

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By Noel Murray
Jul 1, 2015 12:00 AM

Before Modern Family debuted on ABC in September of 2009, Variety’s television critic Brian Lowry published a review that called the pilot episode “easily the new season’s best,” while worrying whether the show would find an audience. Lowry wasn’t alone, either in his praise or his concern. Modern Family was 2009’s fall TV darling, exciting critics with the way it updated the conventional family sitcom by following three interconnected Los Angeles households—two of them “non-traditional”—and cleverly using the then-ubiquitous mockumentary format to deliver narrative surprises and emotional kickers. At once sophisticated and unashamedly beholden to slapstick and wordplay gags, Modern Family seemed maybe too good to survive in a TV landscape where quality shows are born endangered.

Skip ahead six years, and even some of those who once pled, “Please give Modern Family a chance” are saying, “Enough already with Modern Family.” That’s what a half-decade of high ratings, Emmy dominance, and massive syndications sales can do. When the underdog becomes the champion, the crowd starts rooting for someone to knock it down.

Modern Family’s co-creators Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan have earned some of the snarling. Nearly all hit sitcoms get broader year by year, as writers either lean too much on to the characters’ standout quirks or get bored with trying to keep stories within the realm of plausibility. But because Modern Family has such a large cast and such fast-paced storytelling, it became cartoony quicker than most.

Early on, the show established its types: Jay Pritchett (Ed O’ Neill), the standoffish, conservative patriarch; Gloria (Sofia Vergara), his fiery young Colombian trophy wife; Manny (Rico Rodriguez), Gloria’s dandyish son; Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen), Jay’s high-strung, control-freak daughter; Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell), Claire’s soft-hearted goofball husband; Haley (Sarah Hyland), the Dunphys’ popular, fashion-conscious daughter; Alex (Ariel Winter), Haley’s brainy, sarcastic, socially awkward sister; Luke (Nolan Gould), the Dunphys’ dopey, accident-prone youngest son; Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), Claire’s fastidious, worrywart younger brother; and Cam Tucker (Eric Stonestreet), Mitchell’s flamboyant, farm-raised husband. The writers have added supporting characters over the years, some of whom just appear every so often, while others—like Aubrey Anderson-Emmon’s Lily Tucker-Pritchett, Mitchell and Cam’s sour adopted daughter—have become regulars. Over the years, as its characters have become well-established, Modern Family has exaggerated what’s funny about them until at times they become unfunny. Claire is often too shrill, Cam too mincing, Gloria too… Gloria. And so some former fans have rebelled.

But any “backlash” against Modern Family has been relative to the series’ overall success, and has largely been contained to those who write and talk a lot about television, either professionally or as a pastime. The show still wins awards (which is a large part of what annoys some), and it’s maintained a steady audience of around 11 to 12 million viewers per original episode. More importantly, occasional character lapses and creative lulls aside, Modern Family has held to a fairly consistent level of quality throughout its six seasons. The cast and crew continues to produce polished farce with a well-earned sentimental streak, and a couple of times each season the writers experiment with form in ways that even the edgiest sitcoms rarely attempt. In the early going, the series sometimes seemed like at attempt to make the looniness of Arrested Development palatable to the mainstream. But with six seasons in the books, Modern Family has long since developed its own strong, influential voice.

In fact, if Modern Family seems less urgent essential than it did back in 2009, that’s partly because its success has had a profound effect on the programming at ABC in particular. The mockumentary craze has died down, but there’s still a demand for sitcoms that look cutting edge—which in the 2010s means single-camera shows with no laughter on the soundtrack—but have the sweetness and traditional plotting of the genre’s 1960s golden age. The Goldbergs, Fresh Off The Boat, and Black-ish have followed Modern Family’s lead in making stories about family squabbles and coming of age feel relevant to today. (ABC’s The Middle does this too, but it debuted in the same fall season as Modern Family, and came to a similar place all on its own.)

The ten episodes below are drawn from across Modern Family’s six seasons, and represent the range of what the show has tried to do, both as a format-breaker and as a standard-bearer for sitcom traditionalism. Some of these episodes are already acknowledged as modern TV classics; others are more divisive. All give a good idea of why Modern Family has remained so popular.