Some shows appear and disappear almost overnight; others become institutions. Modern Family is in the latter category: more than five years after it finished it’s still one of the most watched shows on Disney+ globally.
Modern Family ran from 2009 to early 2020, and like any show with so many seasons it’s fair to say that it lost some of its freshness over time: where season 1 has a stellar 100% rating from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the final season – season 11 – only reached 80%. But that’s still a much higher rating than many rival sitcoms, and there’s still lots to praise.
Here’s why Modern Family is a modern classic and one of the best Disney+ shows – or best Hulu shows if you’re in the US – of all time.
Why this family is worth getting to know
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The first season set up the premise for the show. An unidentified (to us) film crew is following the Dunphys around to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the extended family: mom and dad Claire and Phil and their three children; Claire’s dad Jay and his much younger wife Gloria; Jay’s son Mitchell, his partner Cameron and their adopted daughter.
As you can see, the setup justifies the title: this is a thoroughly modern family, multi-generational, multi-racial and inclusive of all. And if that’s all the show was about it would probably have been a disaster, preachy and worthy rather than punchy and hilarious. But the writing team is incredibly sharp, the dialog and set-pieces are often hilariously funny and the cast is spectacular. And I think its warmth and big heart really resonate with people whose screens increasingly seem to be blasting them with bad news.
The core cast is brilliant, and while some of the characterization comes close to stereotyping – the camp Cameron, the cantankerous Jay, the fiery Gloria – I don’t think it ever crossed over from affectionate to problematic.
You get the real feeling that the writers care about and love the entire cast – and what a cast it is. Ed O’Neill as Jay, Sofia Vergara as Gloria, Ty Burrell as Phil, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell, Julie Bowen as Claire and Eric Stonestreet as Cameron are all delightful. And with the show lasting so long – almost a lifetime for its youngest stars, most of whom were grown adults by the final seasons – everybody was given lots of time to grow.
The characters are all favorites for me but I think the show was most often stolen by Rico Rodriguez as Manny, the oldest young man ever to exist (and someone who I can’t separate from What We Do In The Shadows’ similarly entertaining Guillermo, played by Harvey Guillén).
NPR put it very well, describing season 1: “Good acting. Great writing. Human characters played by amazing actors. That might be the one twist network TV hasn’t tried often enough.”
Writing in Salon, Heather Havrilesky urged us not to touch that remote. “Between the snappy writing, great comedic directing, and remarkable timing of all of the actors involved, “Modern Family” is one of those rare comedies that never feels awkward or corny as it’s winding up to a punch line… laughter and families? Those two haven’t come together on TV in a long, long time. But once they do? It’s like science: You can’t fight it.” And Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly loved it too. “Modern Family is unique in the way it juggles so many players so deftly and makes every member of the cast a vivid, complex character,” he wrote. “Oh, and it’s really funny, too.”
All 250 episodes of Modern Family are available to stream on Hulu and Peacock in the US, and Disney+ in the UK and Australia.