The Middle Review: Episode 2.19 "The Legacy"

ABC

Today is not a good day to cancel The Middle.

Everyone gets a trophy, and that isn't always a bad thing.

That was the basic plot of tonight's episode, but I can't help feeling that it is also about the show itself. Yeah, this is going to be one of those meta reviews. Deal with it.

The Middle is the closest spiritual successor to ABC's family sitcoms of the 1990's on the network. And I love it for that. I grew up watching shows like Home Improvement and to a much lesser extent Roseanne, shows that rarely ever made me laugh out loud (or LOL if you are sixteen years old), but kept me smiling throughout the episode. And The Middle does this, every week.

In football vernacular, it would be like taking an offensive lineman in the first round of the NFL Draft, which is a middle of the country way of saying that it is solid, but not flashy. And this episode was no different.

But is that enough, is it enough in today's TV world to simply be solid? Apparently, the answer is yes as the show has already been renewed for next season, and the show has done quite well in the ratings. I just have to wonder 

though, how much can viewers in the New York or LA related to a lower middle class family that has to deal with hand-me-down clothes from cousins or that one really poor family with the kids that belong more in a prison than a school? Both were well executed plot lines in this episode.

The bottom line is that for me, constant smiles and the occasional chuckles is enough, and that is exactly what "The Legacy" delivered, as have most episodes of this meat and potatoes show. What do you think, is this enough for you, or do you need to be on the floor laughing constantly?

Maybe I will get a trophy for number of rhetorical questions.

I should, this review was not very special, but a solid C. And I'm okay with that too.

Mediocrity! Yeah!