The Millers: Season 1 (2013)

Over the late Golden Age of Television, some new genres have been founded, while others have been revived. For the most part, though, the classic sitcom has floundered, with most critically-acclaimed comedies anxious to prove that they are more than a mere sitcom. Still, there are great sitcoms being made in the classic mould out there, and The Millers is one of the most memorable. From the unfussy title and the polaroid credit sequence, it’s clear that this is a sitcom in the 80s model, but there’s no sense of nostalgia or revisionism per se – it’s more like an actual 80s sitcom were revived two generation later, with the same actors playing older roles and a younger cast brought in to play the characters who were little kids the first time around. For that reason, it’s perhaps unique among recent comedies, sitcoms or otherwise, in being largely driven by older people – for all that Will Arnett is top-billed as Nathan Miller, it’s undoubtedly Margo Martindale and Beau Bridges, as his parents Carol and Tom, who are the main characters; you feel immediately as if you have known  them for twenty years. After they separate in the first episode, Carol moves in with Nathan and Tom moves in with his sister, Debbie, meaning the action alternates between Nathan and Debbie’s houses, although quite a bit of it’s also shot outdoors, on location, in Leesburg, Virginia -  Nathan’s a local reporter and spends quite a bit of time covering stories in the neighborhood, with his cameraman sidekick, played by J.B. Smoove. That opens up the sets a bit, gives them a bit of room to breathe, while never divesting them of their cosiness or homeliness, while Nathan’s reportage cements it as a series driven by enunciation – all these actors are great at delivering their lines in exactly the right way, with exactly the right emphasis. And it’s often emphasis and inflection rather than the script itself that drives the comedy, especially with Beau Bridges, who can make pretty much anything sound ludicrous or absurd. Modest in its ambitions, it’s very much a comic backwater, but that can be a relief at a time when comedy is so anxious to display its eccentric credentials, so anxious to be the next cutting-edge – it’s highs and lows may be small, but they’re also abiding.