The Revival of Malcolm and the Middle looks different: the creator explains why
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair”
You’re not the boss of me now, but Linwood Boomer is still the boss of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’. And now that the series is returning after a 20-year hiatus for the four-episode revival “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair,” some things would undoubtedly be different, including how it looks.
“The house is a different house, and it should be that way, because it’s the house that Hal and Lois would have if the kids hadn’t ruined everything every day,” Boomer said in an interview with Variety. But it’s not just about the set: the color of the entire series looks different. The original show had a warmer, grittier texture, while the new episodes are brighter and cleaner. Part of that has to do with the fact that the new episodes were shot digitally, while the original was shot on 16mm film.
Executive producer Tracy Katsky Boomer also said that shooting the show in Canada versus California made it look different as well. “Some of it was just filming in Vancouver,” she says. “That light is a different color. Vancouver is bluer and we took the original photo in Southern California, which is more amber. So we went through a lot of it and recolored the timing because it felt too cold to us.”
But the dysfunctional family hijinks remain largely the same. In the show, Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) has distanced himself from his family to the point that they don’t know he has a teenage daughter, played by Keeley Karsten.
“When Tracy gave me the idea of Malcolm having a daughter who looked just like him, it really sparked a lot of things,” says Linwood Boomer. “My kids aren’t exactly like me, but they are uncomfortably smart, in a way that basically completely wiped out my entire parental toolbox.”
The revival culminates in an episode built around Hal and Lois’ 40th anniversary party, where a host of actors from the original show appear. One group that is particularly impressive are the Krelboynes, played by Kyle Sullivan, Victor Z. Isaac and Evan Matthew Cohen. The three perform a dance routine that is so chaotically funny that the Boomers end up working on a similar routine with the entire cast and crew until the end of the episode.
“They did that dance and the whole crew fell to the ground – and that’s how we ended up doing it,” says Linwood Boomer. “In the credits we just said, ‘You know, we all have to do that Krelboyne dance.’ We just got everyone: the crew, the cast, all the actors. It was just a lot of fun.”
And while the ending of Episode 4 leaves room for more stories about Malcolm’s adult life, the Boomers say they have no plans to make any more episodes at this time.
“This never would have happened if it was open-ended,” says Linwood Boomer. “Bryan has a very distinguished career. Frankie has seven eminent careers under his belt. The only way we could do this was to make it a closed case. Maybe it is possible to do another closed kind of case in the future, but there is no discussion about that.”
“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” is currently streaming on Hulu.
