While other hit sitcoms of yore have stayed busy in their hiatus years, milking the cash cow dry with rewatch podcasts and Superbowl ads teasing some far-off return, Malcolm in the Middle has been relatively dormant. Ever since Frankie Muniz’s neurotic boy genius threw his graduation cap into the air back in 2006, bringing six years and seven seasons of gloriously chaotic telly to an end, the cast and creators have hardly made a peep about their beloved show.
And for that, I thank them. It has meant that old fans have been able to rewatch the series, and new ones have been able to discover it without the Ghost of Reboot Yet to Come hovering over proceedings. For two whole decades, Malcolm was allowed to exist exactly as it was: a perfectly pitched, oddball sitcom about America’s most dysfunctional family, superbly acted and creatively experimental. Seven Emmys don’t lie – and really, there should have been more.
