TL;DR – While it had some truly wild moments, it always felt that this was a show that had its predecessor dragging behind it like an anchor, and it likely would have worked better if they had cut that cord free more than they ended up doing.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair Review Introduction

I’m going to come out right from the start and say that I am old enough to have enjoyed the show when it originally aired, but beyond the odd episode here and there, I have not seen the show since its original run. I remember enjoying it when it was on, but then I never found the drive, nor was it easily accessible to rewatch it where I live. Coming into this, I had a lot of nostalgia, but also significant distance from the show, and I’m not sure whether that helped or hurt my viewing experience.

So, to set the scene, A lot has happened to Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) in the years since the show aired. He went off to college, had a daughter, Leah (Keeley Karsten), founded a charity, and has gone mostly non-contact with his family. He keeps up the presence, but then always has a reason as to why he is busy. Well, try as he might to avoid it, his parents, Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), are about to have their 40^th Wedding Anniversary, and they want all the kids back to celebrate it, come hell or high water. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

Yes

Despite my overall disappointment, there are moments where the series briefly recaptures the chaotic vibe of the original. The reveal that Malcolm has been hiding his daughter from his parents for several years was such a wild moment that it probably brought half a star to my score just on its own. It is that one moment that encapsulates all the promise this show had because it was one of the most bonkers reveals that I have ever seen on television. Yet it also perfectly encapsulated what this series was about and allowed all the actors in that moment to absolutely rise to the occasion. Malcolm’s choice to just run out of the room and not stop while the credits rolled gave me the one solid laugh I got out of the series.

As well as that moment, there were a lot of smaller beats that did work. Keeley Karsten absolutely nails the role of being the next generation of the show. She has some of the more interesting parts of the show, looking at how that ‘Malcolm’ dynamic would work in a modern school with a slightly healthier view of parenthood. Kiana Madeira is a blast as Tristan, who spends the whole season making you wonder why someone so out of his league would date Malcolm. I would have liked more of her and Leah’s teamups. Emy Coligado absolutely soared as Piama and has the only good advice that is given out in the entire season. I also loved Reese (Justin Berfield) and Kelly (Vaughan Murrae) having a revenge-off all season.

No

Structurally, I get why Malcolm is away from the family for that first episode reveal, but I am not sure why they made the choice to keep him away for nearly all the rest of the season. It is what people love about the original show, and you can feel the show narratively languish without it. It also badly hurts Malcolm as a character because he dives into almost incel-level awfulness at times, which is almost unredemptive. Frustratingly, this decision feels less like it was an intentional narrative choice, but just a dull writing decision that was not thought through. Then there was the fizzler of a final episode, all the push of the small season was building to this moment. Now, were Lois and Malcolm finally having their big heart-to-heart in the toilets while Craig Feldspar (David Anthony Higgins) has explosive bowel movements behind them, amusing? Sure. But the rest of the episode was just a cavalcade of forced cameo after another; there was no time to let everything breathe because we had to cut back to the idiots who cut the head off a Jesus statue for some reason.

Maybe

Now, my understanding is that this was meant to be a movie, and then it got consolidated into a television miniseries. I would say that, unlike Star Trek Section 31, it is easier to make a movie into a short miniseries than it is to turn a series into a movie. Now I am sure that there is probably some stupid algorithm/marketing/tax reason as to why four thirty-minute episodes are better than one two-hour film. However, practically, I am not sure it makes much of a difference other than they needed to add three cliffhangers. Some of those felt earned, like the one we already mentioned, and others felt cheap, like Lois’s car crash, where I thought they were actually doing something substantial with the show, but nope.

I Don’t Know?

While I know all the creatives behind this show were at the top of their game when this series first aired. However, I am not sure they nailed it here. For example, they shot the show in the same visual style as the original series, but with all these nice new cameras, creating an almost uncanny valley effect. It almost felt at times that the show was both super intentional with its choices, while at times also being almost cavalierly laissez-faire with important aspects of the episodes at the same time. This odd juxtaposition feels to the viewer that either there was not enough time or care put into things before the cameras rolled. I get the first can happen, but I hope it was not the latter.       

The problem this juxtaposition causes is that I am not sure who this show is actually for. For returning viewers, there are so many forced cameos that make Sookie’s appearance at the end of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life feel almost reserved. However, it then does not have the central premise of the show, bar two very small parts. If you are new to the show or have not watched it enough times to get all the Easter Eggs, there are still interesting things here. For example, Hal eating his own ego via hallucinogenics is a master stroke in character acting. The video in the finale is charming, and the realisation that Frankie Muniz is 40 is wild, considering they dress him like he is wearing his father’s hand-me-down suits. But then you have to get through all the dense layers of references and cameos, which were a real slog by the end.

Can You Repeat the Question?      

In the end, do we recommend Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair? This was a show that was written both as a direct continuation of the original series, a la X-Men ’97. While also being written as a legacy follow-up, such as That ’90s Show. I think they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. It didn’t work because there was not enough time in the season to work both narrative devices to a satisfying conclusion. All of these factors left me feeling as if I had watched a continuation with a lot of promise, a show’s cast that is clearly having a blast, and yet a series of narrative decisions that left me, as a viewer, feeling like I got the worst parts of two interesting stories. Have you seen Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair
Directed by – Ken Kwapis
Written by – Linwood Boomer, Michael Glouberman, Matthew Carlson, Gary Murphy, & Al Higgins
Created by – Linwood Boomer
Based On – Malcolm in the Middle by Linwood Boomer
Production/Distribution Companies – New Regency, The Jackal Group, New Satin City Productions, 20th Television, Hulu, & Disney+
Starring – Bryan Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek, Frankie Muniz, Justin Berfield, Christopher Masterson, Keeley Karsten, Vaughan Murrae, & Kiana Madeira
With – Gary Anthony Williams, David Anthony Higgins, Merrin Dungey, Emy Coligado, Craig Lamar Traylor, Dan Martin, Jonathan Craig Williams, Alex Morris, John Marshall Jones, Eric Nenninger, Drew Powell, Arjay Smith, Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, Anthony Timpano, Meagen Fay, Finn Wolfhard, Todd Giebenhain, & Aryan Simhadri
And – Erik Gow, Kyle Sullivan, Victor Z. Isaac, Evan Matthew Cohen, Kowen Cadorath, Kwesi Ameyaw, Richard Young, Keon Lyn, Jett Klyne, Jack Greig, Rhys Slack, Nevis Unipan, Sari Mercer, Aralyn Walker Morrison, & Sheila Tyson
Episodes Covered – Episode One, Episode Two, Episode Three, & Episode Four