(courtesy IMP Awards)
It’s all too easy form some people to dismiss sitcoms as disposable TV, something you watch for an escapist laugh and nothing more.
And while there’s nothing wrong with losing yourself in quick gags and sparkling quips that punctuate storylines that only run to 22 minutes or so, it’s always a real pleasure when a new sitcom on the block turns out to have more going for it than just stress-relieving jokes.
Mid-Century Modern, described in its “elevator pitch” by creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan (Will & Grace) as a “gay Golden Girls” which of the show’s stars, Nathan Lane, described as wonderfully redundant, is a sitcom that on the surface is all comedy set-up and execution, demanding nothing more of you than sitting back, setting aside all that existential angst that you carry like exhaustingly emotional luggage and laughing at the sweet absurdity of it all.
But very quickly it emerges that here is a show which is determined to wear its serious queer heart very much on the sleeve, and that while, yes, we will laugh, we will also find ourselves face-to-face with the kind of raw humanity that has us moving quickly from a raucous laugh or a knowing giggle to really considering how unpredictably intense and challenging life can be.
Many of the plot points in this ten-episode first season stem from real life challenges, whether its finding true love or having to take a job, any job, after you have had to give up a career you loved, or dealing with some deep-seated family dynamics which can’t be waived away with a glib 22-minute narrative that laughs of some fairly serious issues.
Many of the less robust and substantial sitcoms are content to do just that, and entertain beautifully as they do so, but there is something wonderful rewarding about diving into a sitcom that is content to let plot points and serious emotional impacts linger from episode-to-episode, something run-of-the mill sitcoms are usually loathe to do.
Another feather in Mid-Century Modern‘s warmly comforting cap are how well its characters are realised.
The show centres its storytelling prowess and sparkling character-driven comedy on four unusual housemates who live together in the expansive richly-appointed bungalow of bra entrepreneur, Bunny Schneiderman (Nathan Lane), whose widowed mother, Sybil, played with gutsy capability the by the late, great Linda Lavin – she died with just seven of the ten episodes filmed, necessitating some quick rewriting but giving the show to go even deeper and darker while still remaining vibrantly funny than it had been to that point – keeps her son company is his adopted, very gay, new hometown of Palm Springs, California.
After one of his very close friends dies, Bunny, conscious that they live far apart and don’t get to see each other as much as they’d like to, impetuously but with lasting conviction, asking the two remaining friends in their found family quartet to move in with him.
Ex Vogue fashionista, Arthur Broussard (Nathan Lee Graham) and gorgeously handsome, sweet but more than a little himbo-ish flight attendant, Jerry Frank (Matt Bomer) agreed pretty much immediately, each of them realising that the close bond of friendship they share matters far more than anything else and that they need to treasure it while they can, and as fully as they can.
And yes, you can see the Golden Girls parallels in some ways – the house is nearly identical to that of Dorothy et. al and its situated in the kind of archetypal sunny climate so beloved by retirees and the buzz of oneliners and wisecracks is comically audible – but while the four women so loved by a legion of fans everywhere, including an impressive number of gay men, did care for each other, they were also capable of some great unkindnesses and caustically destructive truths too.
Mid-Century Modern is happily free of these barbs and thorns if interpersonal proximity, which is a pleasing because while they work a treat in Golden Girls and drive its episodes to real comedic greatness, they wouldn’t have worked in a show populated by gay men who have been through a lot to get to this place in life, including the kind of bigotry and hatred that makes you hold close to your found family when you are lucky enough to come across them.
It’s that groundedness of harsh lived experience, whether its being rejected by your church and wife in the most publicly cruel way possible (Jerry), or having to flee your small Louisiana town to escape its small-mindedness (Arthur) or falling afoul of the gay community’s penchant for beauty over all else (Bunny), which informs each and every episode of Mid-Century Modern which builds on its mix of emotional honesty and striking laughs to every greater effect through its run.
This is a sitcom which is as heartfelt and tender as it is caustically funny, and it’s the willingness Mid-Century Modern to be so open about the pain and joys of queer life, or life generally because don’t forget, Sybil knows a thing or two about losing everything and clambering back up the other side of the life crater it creates, that really marks it as something special.
Easily dismissed by some as too gentle or too self-effacing, it’s those very qualities that give Mid-Century Modern its comedic chutzpah and its comedic fizz because it is happy to mine the quiet moments, in which all the real living is done anyway, and doesn’t feel the need to go hard and forcefully to garner a life or make a point.
Yes, there are real moments of true silliness – exhibit A is Jerry trying to get Donny Osmond tickets at the local casino – and the humour is very sitcom-ish at times, but by and large, Mid-Century Modern is clever, heartfelt, sweet and thoughtful, the kind of show that does lighten the load of living by making you laugh but also, by being deadly serious when the story calls for it, reminding us that it’s those around us that make it all survivable, and far than that, wonderfully alive, and that we must always treasure our family, in whatever form it takes, as long as we’re lucky enough to have them around us.
Mid-Century Modern streams on Hulu and Disney+