When I watched Modern Family's "Express Christmas", S03 E10, I was fearing the traditional Christmas Special and total disinterest on my part. Yet, as Modern Family often does, my expectations were wrong and so, the episode started in a completely non-Christmas way with the whole family by the pool sunbathing. There are only a couple of episodes that start with the whole family together (see my review on Modern Family S03 E08), usually they meet up in the end as each family part plot-line is resolved.
What was important in this episode, was to show the whole family together to put emphasis on the fact that they won't be on the actual Christmas day and for us as viewers, it felt kind of weird to imagine them not spending Christmas together since they seemed to always do everything as a family relating to the name of the show, as it were, Modern Family. In that way when Cam says that he, Lilly and Mitchell could go to Missouri for Christmas, Claire objects saying that Christmas is spent with family and Cam sets her straight reminding her that his family is in Missouri. Once again, for us as viewers, it is not conceivable that Cam has actually another family. Sure his mother has been seen but only in Cam and Mitchell's house, only in California. The family must keep a familiar setting and if not, must move together like in the Hawai Episodes (S01 E22-23).
Getting back to the episode, I rather liked the idea of "Express Christmas" and the fact that it implied that things were not going to work out. When Phil separates the family in different teams, the set-up is... set up... Now, from that point, everything can and will go wrong. Once again, 5 plot lines operate through the episode and some are weak while others are strong. For example, Claire and Hailey's shopping trip is a very weak plot-line while Phil and Manny's is a bit more intense. As I said before, if you're going to have that many plot-lines, you're going to have to sacrifice a certain amount of depth to them and to the entire episode.
However, even if the plot-lines were a bit light, it didn't injure the episode since it gave us the impression of Christmas and that we were in Santa's Workshop only hours before Christmas Night and all the little elves were working extra hard to finish the presents on time. A chaotic setting maybe, but still, a setting.
What I liked about this episode was the general felling of, everything is going to blow up in our face but actually, as always, things work out. But there are a few issues I want to adress...
If I remember correctly, and this maybe just detail, Mitch and Cam built their wrapping-station themselves, and in last night's episode they refer to it as bought. Hum.... interesting..... a little loose end there.
No, that is really an unimportant detail, but still. No, what I really wanted to adress is the fact that the characters are less and less talking to the camera. Remember when they sat and explained a couple of things to us making each episode a bit funnier ? That was the whole basis of the show ! Well, I can't remember when they last did it and for me, that's a real bummer, because I really enjoyed that part of the show.
Here's me hoping that all this is only temporary because as much as I like things to change, I don't appreciate when a show starts to lose its personality and falls in the washing machine on low-cycle with all the other Sitcoms.
Still, Modern Family is one of the best shows on these days and when 30 Rock comes back, we're going to have a real absurd sitcom showdown. Even if a few things displeased me, the episode remained very good and had more depth than many traditional 2 plot-line sitcoms. I only bitch about these things because I have a lot of passion and hope for this show and wish to see it become more than just another show.
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Thank you,
TRJ
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