why i love malcolm in the middle

growing up, a lot of the TV i was allowed to watch felt somewhat sanitized. my parents had an aversion to "garbage american television". there were a few exceptions to this rule: my mom like "jeopardy" and "wheel of fortune", and my dad liked history channel (which is junk television in its own right), "americas funniest home videos", and "malcolm in the middle".

"malcolm in the middle" ran for seven seasons, from 2000 to 2006. it followed the trials and tribulations of the wilkerson family, who lived in a working class suburb somewhere in the united states. the cast of characters included lois (from a dysfunctional eastern european immigrant family, much like my own mother), hal (a white collar worker with a quirky personality), their oldest son francis (a juvenile delinquent), their second oldest reese (a typical bully type character with a unique criminal genius), middle child malcolm (boasting a high IQ and being constantly punished for his hubris), second youngest dewey (musically gifted with a sweet but stoic personality), and eventually baby jamie, whose personality has yet to take shape at the end of the series.

"malcolm in the middle" is one of those shows where you can see a little bit of yourself (and the people you know) in just about every character. not to mention, it's actually fucking funny XD a lot of sitcoms fail spectacularly in their writing, gratuitous laugh tracks, or stale tropes. while some episodes of MITM are significantly less funny than others, the series is strong through and through. throughout my childhood, in the evenings, between "jeopardy" and "americas funniest home videos", MITM was always playing in the background. whenever i paused what i was doing to watch, it looked back at me like a mirror. most of all it made me laugh during the dark days of my father's addiction and all the abuse in my house. nowadays, i make everyone (especially V X3) watch it with me whenever i can!!!