Malcolm in the Middle
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Malcolm in the Middle is a TV series staring Frankie Muniz.
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[edit] Cast and characters
Originally there were only four children (although Malcolm's oldest brother attended a military school away from home, so he was still the middle child left at home). The fifth child, a new baby, was introduced in the show's fourth season to coincide with Jane Kaczmarek's pregnancy. The boys are, from eldest to youngest: Francis, Reese, Malcolm, Dewey, and Jamie. On the last episode Lois discovered she was, once again, pregnant with a sixth child. Bryan Cranston (Hal), Justin Berfield (Reese) and Erik Per Sullivan (Dewey) are the only actors to appear in every episode.
[edit] Francis
(Christopher Masterson) The oldest of the brothers and the biggest trouble-maker, Francis is a regular character on the show, though he has lived outside of the house since before season 1 began. Lois was in labour with Francis in the middle of her and Hal's wedding, Lois apparently resented Francis for being born a footling breech and exiled him to a military academy. The full extent of his evil deeds were not fully explained, but it was later revealed that he disobeyed Lois' rules and got his nose pierced and crashed her car, which proceeded to burn up and resulted in him leaving the house. After the second season, at only 16 years old, he legally (for those who ignore the fact that he had forged his parents' signatures) emancipates himself with the help of an unscrupulous Alabama lawyer, leaves the academy and heads to Alaska to find work as a logger.
While in Alaska, he marries a local woman, Piama, whom he had dated for three weeks. By season 4 he and Piama have left Alaska and Francis has begun working as a farmhand at a New Mexican ranch/hotel owned by a German couple. (They are Danish in the German-dubbed version of the series.) Francis has become a responsible adult; he has even begun to discipline his younger brothers, who used to regard him as a rule-breaking role model. Unfortunately, a little over two years after he begins working at the ranch, he is fired because the ATM he used to deposit funds isn't actually an ATM. For the remainder of seasons six and seven, Francis makes only occasional appearances, yet he is still credited in each episode. Later, we find that for some time he has been living in a cheap apartment and has failed at getting a job. He briefly took a job as the agent for his friend's band and recently started his own business.
In the final episode, it is revealed that he has actually had a job with a large corporation titled Amerisys for two months, which he is enjoying immensely (although he equally enjoys telling his mother that he's unemployed.) Piama also seems to be pregnant in their final scene, illustrating Francis and his father as having extremely similar personalities and fates. (Both married young to ethnic women whom their mothers hate and both seem to be intensely in love with their wives despite the fact that they often fight.)
[edit] Reese
(Justin Berfield) Reese, the second oldest, is also the least intelligent and most destructive. While in labor with Reese, he was kicking her so hard, that Lois forcefully gave 'pre-mature' birth to Reese. His (Psychotic) obsession with violence horrifies the family and leaves him with few friends, partly as he is a bully at school. He bullies the "Krelboynes" in Malcolms class, and his younger brothers, especially Dewey. He is unintelligent because at an early age he learned how to get rid of his troubles by turning his brain off, or singing the "Minty Mint Song" in his head (Season 4, Episode "Stupid Girl," Original air date 11/24/2002). He is an excellent chef and loves to cook, and banning him from the kitchen has become Hal and Lois's only effective punishment against him. As a baby he called Hal "Phone". He finds success in meat packing, but is fired after setting all the cows free to impress a girl. He once got married to a girl that Ida had introduced him to. She dominated the marriage and constantly shouted at him. Later in the same episode, Reese and Lois enter the garage and find her cheating on Reese with a man she had told Reese was her brother. Reese blindly believes that he is her brother when he and Lois find her. After graduating high school, Reese moves in with Craig and finally finds success – as an assistant janitor in his former high school.
[edit] Malcolm
(Frankie Muniz) Malcolm is the middle child of the family (Thus the title Malcolm in the Middle) and is the central character in the show. At the beginning of the series, Malcolm's teacher recognizes him as a gifted student, and places him in an accelerated learning class. Much to his dismay, the move brands him as a "Krelboyne" (the name "Krelboyne" comes from the surname of one of the characters in the movie The Little Shop of Horrors, Seymour Krelboyne). Many episodes revolve around Malcolm's attempts to reconcile his genius-level IQ (165) with his desire to lead a "normal" social life. In the final episode it is revealed that his parents did not plan for him to be happy in life. They found that every time they set a goal for Malcolm, he would exceed their expectations due to his personality and abilities. Instead of letting him take an easy six figure job out of high school, they force him to go to Harvard. They explained that since he grew up poor, he would have to work for everything. With his resentment for not being liked, and his skills, he would be a natural politician. He would start off as a District Attorney but graduate to mayor, then governor of a midsize state before becoming President of the United States. Lois and Hal envision that he would then become one of the greatest Presidents ever.
He has had various jobs throughout the show including babysitter and even working at Lucky Aide with Lois. In the final episode he gets a job as a janitor at Harvard to help with his tuition.
[edit] Dewey
(Erik Per Sullivan) Dewey is portrayed as quieter and more inclined to the arts than his brothers. He hides his intellect from Malcolm and Reese, in many cases cleverly taking advantage of them. In one episode he fools Reese into believing he is forwarding instructions from their mother when in fact he is making them up while talking to a telemarketer, Francis, a time and temperature lady, or even no one on the phone ("Hal's Friend"). In the fourth season, Dewey begins to exhibit a high degree of intelligence, seen mainly in his talent of playing the piano. Dewey is about to follow his brother into the gifted class, only to have Malcolm help him stay in normal classes. Malcolm has Reese complete Dewey's test, which accidentally gets Dewey thrown into the "Special" class, full of kids considered lost causes (the class is known as the "Buseys", an apparent reference to actor Gary Busey, or perhaps a reference to the New York special education program BOCES). Dewey has since organized the class to want to be all they can be, and is teaching them standard lessons. He has been trying to show that they are just as capable as others, and has organized them to do things such as performing an opera he wrote based on his family. Unlike Malcolm, his parents intend for Dewey to be rich and happy later in life. He spends much effort making sure his brother Jamie doesn't feel neglected like he did. On Sky One, there are many advertisements which feature Dewey in a talking session.
[edit] Lois
(Jane Kaczmarek) Lois is Malcolm's ever tempestuous, tough mother and is a huge control freak. She works as a clerk at Lucky Aide, a local drugstore (Lucky Aide's slogan: "The 'L' Stands for Value"). She has many unconventional ways of disciplining her children, such as having them stand on their heads next to a wall or making them spin in circles with their foreheads on baseball bats. She also has an unhealthy obsession of winning every conceivable argument that may or may not arise. Her mother is still alive, much to the family's dismay. Lois also has a sister called Susan (played in an episode by Laurie Metcalf) with whom she is on uneven ground (Hal was her sister's boyfriend, but he and Lois had sex on top of her car, on her prom night). The sister is now a middle-aged single lady with counseling, who had kidney failure and was going to leave Malcolm and Reese her car in her will, though Lois donated one of her kidneys and had it transplanted into her sister. Her co-worker, the domineering but socially inept Craig Feldspar, has romantic feelings for her, which he makes known in several episodes. Lois is thought to be of Polish or Eastern European decent. This is implied by her love of Polish baseball players and her mother's culture. Lois and Hal continue to be sexually attracted to one another; according to Hal in the season three episode Poker II he and Lois have sex twice a day. In the final episode, it is revealed that Lois has once again gotten pregnant, but it is implied that this is really a joke set up by Dewey and Jamie.
[edit] Hal
(Bryan Cranston) Hal, Malcolm's father, is more relaxed in his parenting than Lois, mainly because he is afraid to make the wrong choice. Several episodes refer to him as a former rebel and troublemaker, much like his sons. His indecisiveness supposedly stems from a childhood incident in which he accidentally caused a clown to get attacked by a snake (both of which he is now afraid of). He knows better than to cross Lois. When Lois is away, he quickly loses self-control and indulges in his baser enjoyments, such as smoking, loud music, and building "killer robots" (as explored in one episode). He has fits of rage over petty annoyances, frequently engaging in self-destructive vendettas against those who cross him, such as a co-worker he believes stole an idea from him, or a garbage man who wouldn't take a certain piece of large trash, or a mini-golf manager who wouldn't give Dewey a free game, or the recurrence of a speeding motorist, or a bothersome bee (whom he ended up in a car chase with and crashed into a wall), or even his own sons. Once Francis asked Lois "Where's Dad?" She replies "He's fighting his worst enemy again" Francis askes "What? The squirrel's back?" Hal keeps encyclopedias with certain letters filled in with pencil, a sort of secret self-therapy, which has occupied many years and many books. This is possibly a harbinger of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is arguably the biggest dreamer of the family, usually fantasizing about enjoyable situations. He is quite passionate about a range of activities, such as roller-skating, pirate radio and race walking. He comes from a large and rich family, all members of which have some (repressed) problem or another. They rarely visit because of the intense friction between Hal's relatives and Lois. Hal's family believes that Hal deserved a high class woman, instead of Lois, who has a lower-class background. His Father (Christopher Lloyd) never listens to Hal, and so he always makes jokes or tickles Hal before they both can speak about Lois. Hal works as a low level, cubicle bound, white collar worker in a large but scandal ridden corporation. He stated in one episode that he works in systems-management.
[edit] Victor and Ida
Lois's parents, Victor (Robert Loggia) and mother, Ida (Cloris Leachman), are the most dysfunctional. They were introduced in the episode "The Grandparents." Victor got off to a bad start by giving Reese an old grenade, which he accidentally set off. Malcolm prevented the house from blowing up by shoving the grenade in the new steel-reinforced refrigerator. Victor and Ida's exact origins are unknown, but it has been referred to as "The Old Country," which has been hinted to be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Ida said she had been through a "camp", and would have been old enough to have lived through the displaced person experience after World War II. Both characters speak with noticeably Slavic accents. Their country of origin is never specified, and may be intended to be fictional. Some details are suggestive of the Ukraine, for example some episodes mentioned the grandparents had lived in Manitoba, which has a large Ukrainian-Canadian community. One episode centers on a fictitious "St. Grotus Day" celebration, which featured embroidered costumes similar to traditional Ukrainian dress. St. Grotus was said to burn down "enemy churches", suggestive of countries with competing Catholic and Orthodox churches. However, in the same episode Lois says "Noroc" (Romanian for "cheers") to her mother, before they both down their drinks. However, in another episode, Lois becomes extremely excited over the prospect of meeting a famous Polish-American baseball player, possibly giving some hints as to her family's ethnic origins, though it might just as well be a reference to actress Jane Kaczmarek's own ethnicity. Victor later runs off and marries a Canadian woman (Betty White). In the episode "Victor's Other Family", it is also revealed that Victor is not Lois' biological father. This is the episode where he is revealed to have died.
Not much is known about Victor, except that he left his home at a young age and that he was in the war. Victor had another family, but kept it a secret from Ida.
[edit] Plot
The show starred Frankie Muniz as Malcolm, the third-oldest of four, later five, children in the family. The oldest child, Francis was shipped off to military school, leaving the three boys; Reese, Malcolm and Dewey living at home, Malcolm being the second oldest of the three (hence the title of the show.) The situation centered on Malcolm and his dysfunctional family's life. In the last episode, Lois came out of her bathroom and was positive on being pregnant with her 6th child.
The series was different from many others in that Malcolm broke the fourth wall and talked directly to the viewer, it was shot using a single camera, and it used neither a laugh track nor a live studio audience. Like most hour-long dramas, this half-hour show was shot on film instead of video. As a midseason replacement, the show quickly gained a large viewer base, starting off with ratings of 23 million for the debut episode and 26 million for the second episode
[edit] Setting
[edit] Episode List
[edit] Reviews
[edit] Notes
[edit] External Links
- TV Guide's Malcolm in the Middle Page, with TV Listings, Photos, Videos, Exclusive News and More.
- Austrian Malcolm in the Middle Fanpage.
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