Written by David Kohan And Max Mutchnick And Suzanne Martin And Adam Barr And Dan Bucantinsky And Tracy Poust And Alex Herschlag
Directed by James Burrows
Bunny (to Jerry/Arthur): "You'll both move in here. We'll be together while we still can, like a family."
Imagine if someone pitched a show that was basically The Golden Girls meets Will & Grace. Then imagine some executive for reasons unknown then decided to commission that show. Something that might have worked in 1985. Something that might have worked in 1998. Is it it something that works for a 2025 audience?
Before I even saw a trailer, I had a somewhat bad feeling about this show. As a premise, it felt very dated and rather niche and much as I love Matt Bomer as an actor, having him in a friends group with Nathan Lane and Nathan Lee Graham seemed an odd choice at best. It's still an odd choice but here we are.
The first opened with the death of fourth friend, George. At his funeral, you've got business owner, Bunny Schneiderman (Lane), who still lived with his mother, Sybil (Linda Lavin) in a lavish house. Then there's the rather caustic, Arthur Broussard (Graham) and ditzy flight attendant, Jerry Frank (Bomer). By the end of the first, both Arthur and Jerry found themselves living with Bunny and Sybil.
Getting back to the comparison of a certain show, each of these characters easily fit into certain roles, though not perfectly. That in itself isn't a bad thing as the show does try to give each of the characters an identity beyond the one show it was compared to. Over the course of ten episodes, I had to admit that I did find myself warming a bit to this series.
These episodes had the difficult task of handling the real life passing of Linda Lavin and to it's credit, the penultimate episode was a nice send off for both Lavin herself and Sybil as a character. Sybil in general had some good moments with the boys along with Bunny's sister, Mindy (Pamela Adlon). The latter character potentially could fill in the Sybil role if this show receives a second season.
Getting back to the show itself, there's a slew of different guests a week, all of whom worked well with the main characters. The likes of Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Billie Lourd, Richard Kind, Zane Phillips and Rhea Pearlman get some nice moments. In particular, Kind's Carroll and Phillips's Mason had quite the impact on both Bunny and Jerry respectively as did Billie Lourd, who played Jerry's daughter.
As for the humour, don't let the occasional swear fool you. It's not a very risque show in that regard. A fair amount of the jokes managed to land but a fair chunk of them also failed to hit the mark. Matt Bomer in particular did falter a bit at first, compared to his co-stars but somewhat improved as the show went on.
- The episodes are titled Bye George, Working Girls, Turbulence, Never Have I Ever, Hello Fisty's, Maid Serviced, Love Thy Neighbour, Sour Pickleball, Here's To You Mrs Schneiderman and The Show Must Go On.
- COVID factored into the fourth episode with the reveal that Jerry and Arthur once slept together.
- I did like the political plot of the seventh episode while the boys let a pretty but lazy houseboy (Adam Hagenbuch) play them off each other.
- Hulu released all ten episodes at once and although he's a producer, Ryan Murphy didn't write or direct a single episode for the show.
- Standout music: The main characters dancing to What A Man was rather funny, I'll admit. There's a bit of dancing in the show.
- Chronology: 2025 Palm Springs for the majority of the show though the fifth episode is set in Fire Island.
Some misgivings to one side, I think I liked Mid-Century Modern a bit more than I thought I would. It's far from perfect, a lot of the jokes don't land and Matt Bomer does feel odd within this group setting but there's potential there. Now whether it not it'll land for everyone else, I'm not so sure.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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