Malcolm in the Middle is an American televisionsitcom created byLinwood Boomer for theFox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on January 9, 2000, and ended on May 14, 2006, after seven seasons consisting of151 episodes.
Thesingle-camera series is acomedy that follows a dysfunctionalmiddle-class family and starsFrankie Muniz in the lead role as Malcolm, achild prodigy. The ensemble cast includesBryan Cranston andJane Kaczmarek as Malcolm's parents, Hal and Lois.Christopher Kennedy Masterson,Justin Berfield, andErik Per Sullivan appear as Malcolm's brothers, Francis, Reese, and Dewey, respectively. Typical plots revolve around the family's dysfunctional relationships and inability to fit into society, with Malcolm regularly makingasides to the camera to comment on their failures. Another brother, Jamie (James and Lukas Rodriguez), was introduced as the fifth son of Hal and Lois at the end ofseason four, with a further pregnancy in the series finale alluding to a sixth child.
Malcolm in the Middle was produced bySatin City andRegency Television in association withFox Television Studios. The show has been syndicated worldwide, and received widespread critical acclaim and proved a popular draw for Fox. It is placed on several lists of the greatest TV and sitcom series of all time.[1][2] It has won aPeabody Award, sevenEmmy Awards, oneGrammy Award and sevenGolden Globe nominations. The show was influential as one of the first single-camera comedy series on TV without a live studio audience or laugh track.
A four-episode revivalMalcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair will be released onHulu in 2026, with Caleb Ellsworth-Clark and Anthony Timpano respectively replacing Sullivan and the Rodriguez brothers as Dewey and Jamie.
The series revolves around Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), who's revealed in the first episode to be agenius with anIQ of 165, which places him in a class forgifted students (also known as "Krelboynes"), originally taught by Caroline Miller (Catherine Lloyd Burns). He is the third-born child in a comicallydysfunctional family of four (later five) boys,[3][4]of Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Jane Kaczmarek). As of the first season, theirdelinquent oldest child Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson) has been sent away to military school; while his brothers Reese (Justin Berfield) and Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan) remain at home with Malcolm and their parents. With Francis away, Malcolm becomes the middle child of the family. In season four, the character Jamie (James and Lukas Rodriguez) was added to the show as the fifth son of Hal and Lois. The show's early seasons centered on Malcolm dealing with the rigors of being an intellectual and enduring the eccentricities of family life.
Later seasons expanded the show's scope by exploring the family's interactions with their extended family, friends and colleagues in more depth, including Lois' tyrannical mother Ida (Cloris Leachman); Lois' hapless coworker at the Lucky Aide drugstore Craig Feldspar (David Anthony Higgins); Malcolm's best friend Stevie Kenarban (Craig Lamar Traylor), who is both a wheelchair user and highly asthmatic; and Stevie's dad Abe (Gary Anthony Williams), as well as a series of continuing subplots detailing Francis' misadventures at the military academy, from which he subsequently disenrolls to work in an Alaskanlogging camp, before finally landing a job on a dude ranch run by an eccentric German couple.
The series differed significantly from the standard TV sitcom presentation commonplace at the time. Malcolm routinely broke thefourth wall by both narrating in voice-over andtalking directly to the viewer on camera. The distinctive look and sound of the series relied heavily on elaborate post-production, including fast-cut editing, sound effects, musical inserts, the extensive use of locations, and the unusual camera styles, compositions and effects (e.g. overhead, tracking, hand-held and crane shots, and the frequent use of a wide-angle lens for both close-ups and ensemble scenes) that would be generally impractical or impossible to achieve in a standard studio-based video multi-camera sitcom production.[5][6] The show employed neither alaugh track (which was standard in other TV sitcoms) nor a livestudio audience.[7][8][9] Emulating the style of hour-long dramas, this half-hour show was shot on film instead of on video.[10][11][12][clarification needed]
Another distinctive aspect of the show is that thecold open of nearly every episode is unrelated to the main story. Exceptions include episodes which were the conclusions of "two-parters"; each part two episode opened with a recap of its part one episode.
The family's surname is never mentioned directly in the series. Linwood Boomer's script for thepilot episode originally included the surname Wilkerson, but it was later removed because he did not want to put "any specific ethnic label on the characters".[13] The surname appeared in early drafts of promotional material and also on Francis' Marlin Academy uniform in the pilot. In the last episode of the series, "Graduation", Francis drops hisID badge from his new office job, which lists his name as "Francis Nolastname". Also, in that same episode, the principal announces Malcolm as the speaker, mouthing "Nolastname" as his voice is drowned out by microphone feedback. A publicist for Fox said that "officially the family's last name should be considered a mystery".[13]
Malcolm (played byFrankie Muniz) is the title character of the series. Malcolm is a genius with an IQ of 165 and aphotographic memory.[14][15] He is placed in a class forgifted students (or "Krelboynes" as they are known at the school).[16] His high intelligence, as well as feelings of not fitting in, and a large ego fueled by a cruel streak of snarkiness cause numerous problems for him over the course of the series. As the title suggests, Malcolm is initially the middle child of the three living at home; chronologically, he is Hal and Lois' middle son. Despite his intelligence, Malcolm is just as immature and destructive as his brothers and is often the ringleader in their schemes. Throughout the show, Malcolm often strives for independence away from his controlling mother and often tries to have her see him as an equal. Due to his intelligence, Lois often makes decisions that she feels will benefit his education while keeping a close eye on him. It is revealed in the series finale that she does this so that he will one day become the President of the United States and use his position to help lower-class families like their own. His best friend is Stevie Kenarban. In the series finale, he graduates from high school and starts attending Harvard University by both scholarship and working various jobs, specifically as a janitor.
Lois (played byJane Kaczmarek) is the family's temperamental and overbearing mother who is also an intelligent and decisive woman. Most of her bullishness comes from her constant battles throughout the series to keep her badly behaved, highly destructive boys in check, while maintaining a menial job at a Lucky Aide drugstore, as well as her own difficult upbringing with a tyrannical mother and an indifferent father. Though she is hard on her children for their constantly bad behavior, Lois can be just as petty and spiteful as them, e.g., going after a group of girls that humiliated Reese before his senior prom. Despite her constant aggressiveness, she is motherly[17] and will defend her family fiercely, especially against neighbors and others who view them as poor trash; in one episode, she finds that Malcolm and Reese discovered their neighbor having an affair with herMexican gardener while they planned to frame her son for theft, but does not punish them for their actions as this counted as revenge against the woman, who despised Lois. Lois is disliked by both Hal's wealthy family and her own parents. She has a younger sister named Susan, who blames Lois for stealing Hal from her. Neighbors hate Lois and her sons and celebrate the weekends when they are gone. In the series finale, she discovered that she and Hal are expecting a sixth child.
Hal (played byBryan Cranston) is Lois' husband and father to Francis, Reese, Malcolm, Dewey and Jamie. Hal is a well-meaning, loving, but inept and completely immature father, and completely dependent on Lois, whom he loves absolutely. He comes from a wealthy family that does not accept Lois as his wife and who wish that he had married Susan instead. Because his family is disrespectful towards Lois, he rarely mentions them and avoids his family. Hal loves his boys and will sometimes sneak them out for fun father–son activities behind Lois' back. Hal is an indecisive character who frequently picks up new hobbies for short periods of time, such as speed walking or painting, and is irresponsible with the money he earns from his office job. His indecisiveness was explored in "Living Will" from a childhood which he had a hard time making decisions for himself and because of this, he always deferred to Lois to make them for him. In the series finale, he discovers that he and Lois are expecting a sixth child. Hal has a high sex drive, as revealed in the episode "Forbidden Girlfriend", and it is mentioned in the episode "Poker 2" that he has sex 14 times per week. Hal's best friend is Abe Kenarban.
Francis (played byChristopher Kennedy Masterson) is Hal and Lois' oldest son. At the beginning of the series, he is attending military school inAlabama,[18] run by the strict Commandant Spangler (Daniel von Bargen).[19] It is shown that his parents enjoyed a promising middle-class, comfortable lifestyle before he was born and that he was such a difficult, destructive child that their dream soon ended. He has himself legallyemancipated at the start of season three, leaves the school, and travels toAlaska.[20] He finds work at a logging camp and later meets and marries Piama (Emy Coligado), a girl ofInuit heritage.[21] When the camp closes, they move to the western United States and take jobs at aWild West–themed hotel/ranch, run by kindly but eccentric Germans: Otto Mannkusser (played byKenneth Mars) and his wife, Gretchen (played byMeagen Fay).[22] Francis and his mother have a mutual love–hate war of wills, and his main motivation in life is to thwart or irk her (though, ironically, he marries a woman with the same personality as Lois). Although a juvenile delinquent, he is streetwise. Francis is seen less frequently after season five, becoming a recurring character and making only a small handful of appearances in season six and season seven, which is the show's final season.[19] Francis' steady job disappears in season six due to legal issues until the series' finale, "Graduation", reveals that he has been working for a few months in a stable tech company job entering data into computers. He admits to Hal that he likes his job, but also enjoys frustrating Lois by lying to her that he's unemployed.
Reese (played byJustin Berfield) is Hal and Lois' second son.[19] The older brother of Malcolm, Dewey and Jamie, and younger brother of Francis, Reese is the most impulsive and physical of the boys.[23] Lacking common sense, he is frequently outwitted and outspoken by other family members, and is gleefully violent.[23] Despite being dimwitted, Reese is able to devise plans thoroughly (although most of his plans tend to backfire), and is masterful at the rare tasks which can pin his drifting focus, such as driving, or cooking and baking (he is revealed to be aculinaryprodigy).[24] In the series finale, he finally graduates from high school after intentionally failing many times before, obtains full employment as a high school custodian, and shares an apartment with Craig.
Dewey (played byErik Per Sullivan) is Hal and Lois' fourth son. He is the youngest child until the birth of Jamie, and often falls victim to his brothers' pranks.[25] Starting in season 4, Dewey is shown to be very intelligent and musically gifted as he begins teaching himself to play the piano.[26] He has a very high tolerance for pain due to years of physical and mental abuse from his brothers. Dewey often resorts to Machiavellian schemes to one-up his brothers and parents. Despite his intelligence, he is placed in a remedial class for slower students (or "Buseys") due to a misunderstanding.[27] Dewey remains in the class and serves as their self-appointed teacher. By the seventh and final season of the show, the Busey class is no longer mentioned. He is the only sibling that eventually breaks the cycle of abusing the younger sibling, which ends up with him acting like a normal, lovable brother towards Jamie. In the series finale, he and Jamie are last seen hiding in the closet together after a prank, continuing their older brothers' tradition of incurring Lois' wrath.
Caroline Miller (played byCatherine Lloyd Burns) is Malcolm's teacher (seasons 1–2).
The pilot's script was initially being developed byUPN untilRegency Television became involved.[28] It was planned for the1998–99 television season. However, when UPN's enthusiasm for the project waned,Gail Berman managed to rescue the pilot by bringing the project to Fox.[28] The show was then moved to the1999–2000 cycle where it was picked up by Fox.[29]
The show's opening title features short clips from cult films or television shows, with earlier seasons being edited together with clips from the pilot and early episodes of the show. It was updated in season 4 to include clips from later seasons, set to the song "Boss of Me" byThey Might Be Giants.
Much of the filming forMalcolm in the Middle was doneon location[30] in various parts of thethirty-mile zone aroundLos Angeles. A privately owned home, located inStudio City, California, was rented for upwards of $3,000 a day to film as the exterior of Malcolm's house.[31] Rebuilt in 2011, the property is no longer recognizable due to its modern two-floor design. However, the house directly to the left of it is nearly identical to what it looked like during filming, still making it a frequent stop for fans of the show. Some high school scenes were filmed atWalter Reed Middle School,[citation needed] and the Lucky Aide was represented by aDrug Emporium at 6020Lankershim Boulevard inNorth Hollywood. In "Stock Car Races", when Hal and the boys are entering a race track, the billboard behind the entrance displays the place asIrwindale Speedway, a real race track in Southern California. The last episode in the first season ("Water Park") was filmed at a water park calledWild Rivers located inIrvine, California. Though palm trees and desert scenery are seen in shots of the local region and town throughout the show, indicating a location in the Western United States, it is never revealed which state the show is set in (except for Francis' whereabouts in early seasons, such as his military school in Alabama and his job in Alaska. In Season 6 Episode 6 Hal's Christmas gift reveals a license plate showing it to be the "Cherokee state" or Oklahoma, during Lois' demo derby).
Studio filming forMalcolm in the Middle took place on Stage 21 atCBS Studio Center in Studio City, which included the interior of the home and the back yard.[32] The middle school play yard was at the northern point of the CBS studio property at the end of Radford Avenue. It was redressed as the high school courtyard starting in season 4 and was demolished in 2006–2007.
Hallmarks of the series' filming and structure, many of which heavily influenced later programs, included the following:
Acold open presenting one or more family members in an absurd situation that has little or nothing to do with the main plot of the episode.
A split-secondwhip pan as a transition from one scene to another.
The show'stheme song, "Boss of Me", was written and recorded by the alternative rock groupThey Might Be Giants.[34] The song won the "Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media" award at the2002 Grammy Awards.[35] The band also performed nearly all of theincidental music for the show in its first two seasons.[36]
The show enteredbarter syndication in the fall of 2004 one month before the sixth season premiered onFox and was later aired onFX in the fall of 2007 until the fall of 2011.[38]
The show was launched onNick at Nite on July 5, 2009, at 8:00 pm with an all night marathon.[39] However, the episodes were either skipped over or heavily edited due to content that was too strong for the network's standards. When Nick at Nite pulledMalcolm it began airing onTeenNick[40] from November 26, 2010, and continued until December 2010. The show returned to TeenNick's line-up on July 18, 2011.
On September 26, 2011,Malcolm in the Middle began airing onIFC.[41]On March 5, 2018, the series began airing onFuse.
On April 11, 2019, it was originally revealed that the show would be available onDisney+,[42][43] Disney's direct-to-consumer streaming service, at launch on November 12, 2019. However, the show was not available on launch day for unknown reasons.[44] In March 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, Disney sent a survey out to Disney+ consumers asking if they would like content on the site such asMalcolm in the Middle and other "mature" shows such asFirefly,Buffy the Vampire Slayer, andModern Family.[45] The series is currently available to watch onHulu.
In the United Kingdom, the series originally aired onSky1 from September 3, 2000, later also airing onSky2 before finally leaving all Sky channels in December 2010. It also aired on free-to-airBBC Two from April 6, 2001, to March 7, 2009. From January 3, 2011, it aired on Fiver (now 5*) at 6:00 pm and again at about 7:30 pm, later moving to a weekly slot at 3:15 pm on Saturday afternoons. Repeats continued until January 18, 2014.Comedy Central UK and Ireland picked up the show in November 2015 and aired until 2018. Nickelodeon UK also began showing the series in 2018.4Music started showing two episodes daily at 6.00pm and 6.30pm, from July 6, 2020. The show currently airs onE4 Extra. As of December 2021, the series is available on Disney+ in the UK. In Kenya, the show used to air Thursdays at 7:30 pm onNTV from 2003 to 2005.
Only the first season ofMalcolm in the Middle has been released onDVD. In the U.S., season two was set to be released in the fall of 2003, but was cancelled due to high costs ofmusic clearances.[46]
Extended pilot episode,A Stroke of Genius featurette, commentary on select episodes, gag reel, deleted scenes, alternate show openings, bloopers,Dewey's Day Job featurette.
Extended pilot episode,A Stroke of Genius featurette, commentary on select episodes, gag reel, deleted scenes, alternate show openings, bloopers,Dewey's Day Job featurette, Season 2 Still Gallery.
In February 2012, it was announced that Fabulous Films would be releasing the first season of the show in the UK in April, as well as releasing each subsequent season the following month, ending with a complete series set near Christmas 2012.[64] However, in late March 2012, several retailers had removed the release date from their websites; this was later revealed to be because of "technical issues with the Masters" and that the release date had been pushed back to June.[65] Other seasons will now follow on either a monthly or bi-monthly basis.[66]
All the UK DVD releases are intact as originally aired with no cuts, with the original music, with the exception of one season three episode "Company Picnic" which was originally aired as a one-hour special, before being re-edited and split into two parts for syndication. The DVD presents the syndicated version.
All seven seasons as well as the complete series set were released in Australia in September 2013. The complete series set altered the separate seven season sets to fit into four volumes. A collector's edition boxset which has the seasons split up instead of volumes was released subsequently in 2014. It features everything from the four-volume set and includes a bonus T-shirt. This set is exclusive to Australia.[63]
In May 2019, Turbine Medien announced the first ever Blu-ray release of the complete series in Germany, that was released in September 2019. The release however, was in Standard Definition, in similar fashion to the PAL DVD releases.[67]
Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, gave the show's first season a score of 88 out of 100 based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[68]
Despite the critical acclaim, its success was not assured with audiences generally rejecting single-camera, live action comedies at the time. However, the show achieved Fox's biggest ratings for a premiere sinceThe Simpsons in 1990 with an audience of more than 23 million for the debut episode and Fox's biggest rating for a show aired directly afterThe Simpsons.[28] 26 million watched the second episode.[69]
Fox shuffled the show's air time repeatedly to make room for other shows. On January 13, 2006, Fox announced that the show would be moving to 7:00 pm on Sundays effective January 29, 2006.[70] The 151st and final episode of the series aired at 8:30 pm ET/PT (the show's original timeslot) on May 14, 2006,[71] and was watched by 7.4 million.[72]
Jane Kaczmarek andCloris Leachman were nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award every year they appeared on the show, as leading and guest actress, respectively.[80][81] Leachman won in 2002 and 2006.[81]Frankie Muniz was nominated once for lead actor, andBryan Cranston three times for supporting actor. The show won a total of seven Emmys during its six-year run[82] and aPeabody Award.[83] Kaczmarek was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, Muniz was nominated twice, and Cranston was nominated once.
In the 2017 filmThe Disaster Artist, Bryan Cranston appeared as himself, offeringGreg Sestero a guest role on an episode ofMalcolm in the Middle.[87]
The series served as inspiration forepisode 6 of theDisney+Marvel Cinematic Universe television miniseriesWandaVision, and the intro ofWandaVision show in show also parodiesMalcolm in the Middle.[88][89] Inepisode 8 of the series, a DVD box of thefirst season can be seen among DVDs of other shows. Later in that same episode, the main characters are watchingseason seven's second episode "Health Insurance".[90]
There is an alternate ending toBreaking Bad released on the complete seriesDVD box set, where Hal (whose actor Cranston playsWalter White inBreaking Bad) wakes up from a dream, revealing the entirety ofBreaking Bad to be a bad dream inMalcolm in the Middle that Hal had after eating deep-friedTwinkies. This is a parody of the ending to the showNewhart.
In 2016, Bryan Cranston openly expressed interest in doing a reunion.[92] In 2021, Frankie Muniz, while speaking onSteve-O's podcast, revealed that Cranston was writing a script for a movie reunion and that the entire cast was ready to return except for one hold out, though he kept the identity confidential. In December 2023, it was suggested that the hold out was the creator of the show,Linwood Boomer, during Muniz's appearance onMayim Bialik's[93] podcast and that he would only give his blessing if two specific previous writers were on board.[94]
In December 2024, it was announced that a four-episode revival was in the works forDisney+ with Muniz, Cranston and Kaczmarek set to reprise their roles. It will follow Malcolm and his daughter as Hal and Lois demand their presence for their 40th wedding anniversary party.[95] Initially, the project had been pitched as a two-hour movie before being consolidated into four 30-minute episodes for the channel.[96] The series commenced filming in April 2025, in accordance with Muniz'sNASCAR schedule.[97] In March 2025, it was revealed that Berfield and Masterson are set to reprise their roles, while Erik Per Sullivan was replaced by Caleb Ellsworth-Clark as Dewey. Further casting decisions were also revealed with the additions of Anthony Timpano (Jamie), Vaughan Murrae (as new sibling Kelly),Kiana Madeira (as Malcolm's girlfriend Tristan) and Keeley Karsten (as Malcolm's daughter Leah).[98] The filming wrapped in May 2025.[99]
^Tucker, Ken (February 25, 2002)."Watching Ellie".Entertainment Weekly.Archived from the original on December 7, 2023. RetrievedDecember 6, 2023."Malcolm in the Middle," now in its third season, opened up new stylistic possibilities in the shot-on-film sitcom genre.
^Johnson, Tricia (July 5, 2001)."As seen on TV!".Entertainment Weekly. Archived fromthe original on February 22, 2014. RetrievedFebruary 4, 2014.They pay about $3,000 to $4,000 a day.
^"Jane Kaczmarek".Emmy Awards. Academy Of Television Arts & Sciences.Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. RetrievedFebruary 4, 2014.
^ab"Cloris Leachman".Emmy Awards. Academy Of Television Arts & Sciences.Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. RetrievedFebruary 4, 2014.
^"Malcolm In The Middle".Emmy Awards. Academy Of Television Arts & Sciences.Archived from the original on February 17, 2014. RetrievedFebruary 4, 2014.
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