DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Today, Hulu drops all four new episodes of an old sitcom, and it's a delight. The new limited series is called "Malcolm In The Middle: Life Still Unfair." Linwood Boomer, who co-created the original "Malcolm In The Middle" sitcom way back in the year 2000, is back for the reunion. So is almost all the original cast, in a four-episode plot that has Hal and Lois, the parents of this very dysfunctional family, struggling to mount a 40th wedding anniversary party. When the original "Malcolm In The Middle" premiered, Frankie Muniz, who played Frankie (ph), spoke directly to the TV audience about his anxieties growing up in this particular household.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE")
FRANKIE MUNIZ: (As Malcolm) My name is Malcolm. Do you want to know what the best thing about Childhood is? At some point, it stops.
BIANCULLI: The series sequel, with its "Life Still Unfair" subtitle, a shout-out to the original show's theme song, picks up right where the seven-season sitcom ended, with Malcolm still confiding directly to the audience.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE: LIFE STILL UNFAIR")
MUNIZ: (As Malcolm) Yeah, I look different. But hey, everything about me is different. I'm happy. I'm successful. I've learned to work productively with idiots. My life is fantastic now. You want to know how I did it? All I had to do is stay completely away from my family.
BIANCULLI: Thank goodness he doesn't maintain that level of separation because Malcolm's parents, Hal and Lois, are the best thing about any iteration of "Malcolm In The Middle." Lois is played with exasperated patience by the wonderful Jane Kaczmarek, and Hal, her goofy man-child of a husband, is played by Bryan Cranston. He played this cartoonish live-action Homer Simpson hilariously for years, then took a hard turn to play Walter White, the science teacher turned drug-dealing murderer in the drama series "Breaking Bad." But he never lost his sense of humor or how to play Hal's character.
When "Breaking Bad" ended, he and Kaczmarek filmed a playful scene just for fun and for YouTube, that was a callback to the famous ending of the TV sitcom "Newhart." Remember, at the very end of that series, Bob Newhart woke up in bed in his old bedroom with his old TV wife, Emily, played by Suzanne Pleshette from "The Bob Newhart Show." He tried to describe his entire "Newhart" series to her as a bad dream. And after "Breaking Bad" ended, Bryan Cranston, waking up as Hal in bed next to his former TV wife, had a similar experience.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRYAN CRANSTON: (As Hal) Wake up. Honey. Honey, wake up. Wake up, wake up.
JANE KACZMAREK: (As Lois) For the love of criminy, what is it? What's the matter?
CRANSTON: (As Hal) Oh, I just had the scariest dream.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois) I told you not to eat those deep-fried Twinkies.
CRANSTON: (As Hal) No, you don't understand. You don't understand. I was - oh, I was this meth dealer.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois) What?
CRANSTON: (As Hal) Yeah, I was this world-class chemist, and I cooked, and I sold this ultra-pure methamphetamine.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois, laughter) You cooking anything?
BIANCULLI: In "Malcolm In The Middle: Life Still Unfair," the comic chemistry remains, though times have changed. Lois still shaves Hal's body hair at the breakfast table, shearing him like a sheep, but now Hal's hair is white. And at the table on this particular morning is a member of the family who is new to us, Kelly, a teenager who identifies in a way that Hal struggles to understand, at least in how to address her.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE: LIFE STILL UNFAIR")
CRANSTON: (As Hal) We're going to go shopping later. Do them want to come?
VAUGHAN MURRAE: (As Kelly) Him can't come with we. Us has homework.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois) Hey, he's trying. Don't mock him for it.
MURRAE: (As Kelly) I'm not afraid of you.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois) That's not...
MURRAE: (As Kelly) I get good grades. I help around the house. I'm your only kid without a file at the police station. I'm untouchable.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois) Yeah. Well, it wouldn't kill you to tell your father you loved him every once in a while.
MURRAE: (As Kelly) I love you.
KACZMAREK: (As Lois) Oh, that just sounds sarcastic.
MURRAE: (As Kelly) I love you.
CRANSTON: (As Hal) Now you sound annoyed.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Kind of do. It's your timbre.
MURRAE: (As Kelly) I love you. I love you. I love you.
CRANSTON: (As Hal) The middle one was nice. Thank you.
BIANCULLI: I've seen all four episodes of "Life Still Unfair," and they're full of laughs and surprises in equal measure. All but one of the former child actors are back for this sequel - there's a new actor playing Dewey - and other characters are added, including Malcolm's high school-age daughter, Leah, played by Keeley Karsten, who's as humorously anxious and observant in this show as Malcolm was in the original. And Muniz, as the grown-up Malcolm, is terrific. So is Kaczmarek as Lois. And Cranston, as Hal, goes through so many broad comedy pitfalls and pratfalls that he's like a Tex Avery cartoon character. Put it this way, what he did as the Hollywood executive in HBO's "The Studio," that's nothing compared to what happens to him here. And in both cases, coincidentally, massive amounts of pharmaceuticals are involved. Ken Kwapis, a director on the original "Malcolm," directed all four episodes of "Malcolm In The Middle: Life Still Unfair." And the final result is a show that's ultimately about family and tolerance and love. But most of all, it's about evoking laughter, which it does constantly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOSS OF ME")
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Yes, no, maybe. I don't know. Can you repeat the question? You're not the boss of me now. You're not the boss of me now. You're not the boss of me now, and you're not so big. You're not the boss...
BIANCULLI: On Monday's show, Toni Morrison's books have been celebrated and banned, and her quotes are everywhere. But author and Harvard Professor Namwali Serpell has spent 30 years within Morrison's prose and says, what if we've been missing the point of her work all along? Hope you can join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzell, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper.
For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOSS OF ME")
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: (Singing) Life is a test, but I... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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