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Hello! After a whole four episodes of my reviews, I am finally going to write about a really long series. This type of series are ones that we watch with my girlfriend usually just before going to sleep, as we enjoy having background noise while falling asleep. At first we were just watching Friends, TBBT and HIMYM, but eventually we ran out of episodes and moved to less popular ones.

In this review, I will be talking about one such series - The Middle. Apparently for my girlfriend it was a rewatch and she already enjoyed it the first time, but for me it was completely new, so I decided to agree to it. Supposed to be a chill family-friendly series with a lot of comedy sprinkled in, it sounded like a great choice! We finally finished it two days ago, so here's my honest opinion.

Synopsis

This is a really long series which spans over 9 seasons and focuses on a life of a family living in Orson, Indiana - towards the border with the states of Illinois and Kentucky. The sitcom follows the lives of Frankie Heck, a middle-aged woman, as well as her husband Mike and three kids - Axl, Sue and Brick.

Frankie also plays a role of a narrator, supposedly also telling the stories to the viewers. The family is slightly dysfunctional which leads the series to multiple comical scenes. They are a paycheck-to-paycheck household in which everything breaks all the time and each of the kids has a gimmick which constantly puts them in troublesome situations.

Axl is the oldest child and he is the popular kid that does not study well but gets around with his charm and wit. Sue is a happy-go-lucky girl that is completely clueless, but her continuous failures do not stop her from never giving up and constantly being optimistic, while Brick is the weird kid - with weird nervous tics, completely introvert personality and an above average intelligence.

Together, they form the basis for the series which follows the Hecks in the years that their kids grow up and slowly begin to leave the nest.

My Opinion

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I definitely tend to complain a lot in these reviews - except the one about Marry Me, I don't think I have been overly positive. That said, The Middle will be free of too many complaints. It is a sitcom that delivers on what it set out to do: it's funny, it's incredibly easy to watch and it has many sweet scenes where you'll be like "awww!" as you see them. Is it a fantastic series? No, it has its many flaws, it's no Friends or The Big Bang Theory, but it's an enjoyable watch.

The characters are, in my opinion, quite fun. Their gimmicks are obviously exaggerated, especially in the case of Sue and Brick, but that really does bring the comedy without being overly ridiculous. Sue's positivity and optimism does at first seems like it's being taken too far, with her not realizing how bad she is at.. just about everything. That is fixed well in later seasons though and it does make it into a nice character development: from a clueless teen into a young adult that is aware of her flaws but chooses to stay happy regardless.

That's actually something I really enjoyed in this series - the character development is quite visible and shown in a gradual enough way that it does not seem rushed or anything like that. It also does not feel like a character was replaced with another one - they're all the same people, but just becoming better or worse in different aspects. This does apply to all 5 of the main characters.

Speaking of characters, some of the side ones do get overly ridiculous and exaggerated and that is probably my main complaint about the show. In particular there are two storylines that just do not hit my humour - maybe they are fun for some people, but it's not my thing at all. First of all, the Glossner family - a single mom with misbehaving kids that terrorize the neighborhood. Without spoiling anything, I just want to say that it feels a bit too much and feels slightly out of touch with the series. The second character is Rusty - Mike Heck's brother. He is a guy that failed at life and tries to get by through a lot of lawbreaking.. It's just not so fun for me to watch the scenes where he's involved.

To name one other flaw of The Middle, I'd have to point at the special episodes, especially Halloween ones. While I understand the concept and the idea to try to do something different for the "specials", I just felt like they were so out of the show's regular identity that they felt like they don't belong. This is of course just my take on it and it surely was a nice change of pace for others!

In general, The Middle was really funny. I laughed on multiple scenes and smiled a lot at others. Its plot also made a lot of sense and the way the story and characters were pushed forward fell into place very well, especially for a sitcom. I can certainly say I enjoyed it throughout the whole 9 season and it didn't get old - I would definitely not be against seeing more seasons.

Closing Words

Here you have it, finally a decently positive review from me again! Hopefully I will be able to post more of these, as I try to branch out into movies and series that are not strictly comedies or cheesy romance. You'll hear from me again soon enough - I don't promise that it won't be something disappointing, as I have watched a pretty ridiculous reality/lifestyle/biographical series recently.