They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, but at the same time, the powers that be when it comes to TV have never made something like this. A multi-cam sitcom shot in front of a live audience with every episode clocking in at under 30 minutes, Mid-Century Modern is eager to scratch that nostalgic itch in your brain. Luckily, though, it’s not all stuck in the past.
Co-created by Will & Grace masterminds Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, this new comedy is as maximally gay as can be. After the death of a friend, Bunny Schneiderman (Nathan Lane) decides that he ought to invite his other good Judys to live with him in his luxurious Palm Springs home—or rather, the luxurious home he already shares with his mother Sybil (the late Linda Lavin). It doesn’t take much convincing for former Vogue columnist Arthur (Nathan Lee Graham) and flight attendant Jerry (Matt Bomer) to agree to stay, and homosexual hijinks ensue.
Mid-Century Modern isn’t groundbreaking in its format, and that kind of familiarity makes for easy watching. You know that whatever interpersonal problems that the group stumbles into will be resolved in 20ish minutes, that someone will learn a vague but widely applicable lesson, that there will be enough jokes to keep things moving quickly. It’s not The Bear or Hacks or even Abbott Elementary, but it doesn’t need to be. There’s still room in the contemporary television landscape for an old-fashioned sitcom.
But, again, the series refuses to be defined by its traditional leanings. The gays live in Palm Springs; they joke about Barbra Streisand and Anna Wintour, obviously, but also PrEP, pegging and phone scammers. Bunny describes their group as “women of a certain age,” but they’re generally with the times. It’s fun to see this demographic leading on TV for the first time—aging gay men without the crutch of a straight main character—and the three leads revel in the opportunity.
Lane is obviously an experienced professional, and this is perhaps his most flamboyant role since The Birdcage (A24’s unsung Dicks: The Musical notwithstanding). The actor clearly takes a lot of joy in what he calls being one of the gay Golden Girls, and it shines through on screen; given the reporting on how his identity has impacted his career, his performance ends up feeling as poignant as it is utterly jubilant. Meanwhile, Bomer is a consistent standout. He plays the beautiful idiot that is Jerry, a man whose chiseled jaw and muscle mass make up for his total lack of a brain. Are all of his jokes funny? Do they always make sense? Not necessarily, but his delivery makes every line memorable. It’s a different kind of performance from the actor, whose dramatic work in Fellow Travelers with Jonathan Bailey still resonates, and he has plenty of fun with it. To round out the trio, Graham gets to tackle the show’s most deliciously bitchy lines as the judgmental and fashionable Arthur, and the actor makes reading an art.
Mid-Century Modern also boasts the final performance of Linda Lavin, who passed during production. Mutchnik and Kohan had to retool the last episodes to write her out, and you’d have to have a heart of stone to not feel the tug of tears in the penultimate episode, “Here’s to You, Mrs. Schneiderman.” That emotional context aside, Lavin is an absolute delight as Sybil. One of the bonuses of having this series on streaming is that the dialogue can be as explicit as the writers want, and yeah, it’s funny to see a nearly 90-year-old woman drop the c-word.
Like any good sitcom, there are guest stars galore, from Pamela Adlon to Richard Kind to Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Mid-Century Modern never aims to reinvent the wheel, just refashion it. While that makes for some obvious or cliche moments, they’re not unwelcome ones. It’s a series that’s easy to watch and easy to enjoy, and sometimes that’s all you really need in a comedy.
All 10 episodes of ‘Mid-Century Modern’ premiere on March 28th on Hulu.
