Among the latest heavyweights of “sitcoms” on major American chains, the Modern Family series is hanging up, a new sign of the slowdown in a genre that is still very popular.
For its finale, the ABC channel series offered two hours of programs, with an opening documentary and then an episode in two parts, which was broadcast on Wednesday in the United States.
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Four million viewers
The opportunity to have fun one last time the tribulations of the Pritchett clan, which has raged for 11 seasons and 248 episodes. Even if it continues to carry audiences of good outfits, nearly four million viewers per episode this season, Modern Family is quite far from the standards of its beginnings.
The series brought together an average of 14 million people in 2013-14, at a time when the place occupied by online video platforms was much less. It was especially during its first seasons that it weighed in seducing the public and critics alike, to the point of winning a Golden Globe for the best comic series in 2012, the awards presented by the association of foreign journalists from Hollywood.
A benevolent recipe with diversity
Modern Family has managed to combine the spiciness of removed dialogues and an offbeat staging of fake documentary The Office style , with a benevolent tone.
"We started in 2009, at a time when comedy was resolutely oriented towards cynicism," wrote Christopher LLoyd, one of the two creators of the series, for the Hollywood Reporter site. "And there were a lot of really funny things," he remembered, "but there seemed to be an opening for a comedy that had feelings. "
The recipe worked, confirming that there was still a demand for a style presented as condemned. The series was also praised for including a gay couple among its main characters, who adopted a baby girl. It was not the first of its kind, but its recurrence on the screen helped trivialize the presence of gay characters on American television.
Modern Family also staged a Hispanic woman in a major role, which was done very little at the time. The character of Gloria, Colombian by origin interpreted by Sofia Vergara, however, also received criticism from the authors, accused of having presented a caricature.
The production managed to complete the filming of the last episode before the confinement linked to the coronavirus. To finish, Modern Family simply proposes to bring, as for 11 years, "something a little positive, a little joy in the life of people," explained Nolan Gould, who plays Luke Dunphy in the series, at the Hollywood Life site.
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