在很多人眼中，“家”是一個溫馨的符號，這其中包括一臉溫情地注視著自己的母親，一臉嚴肅訓導自己的父親，還有與自己打打鬧鬧的兄弟姐妹。但是，美劇《摩登家庭》告訴我們，煽情是“旁門左道”，搞笑才是“滄桑正道”。整天神經兮兮的老媽，自認為很時髦的老爸，正處叛逆期的女兒，笨拙木訥的繼父，以及敏感又愛表現的繼子，各色人物之間的碰撞使得這部劇可笑又可愛。我一直認為，就是對著至親的人，我們才可以肆無忌憚地開玩笑和搞怪，而這比“催淚彈”更能體現“家”的價值之所在。
——Mac
The family sitcom， as our understanding would have it， lost its cultural currency when networks determined that for the affluent viewers they sought， the workplace had become the new household， the 1)cubicle the new bedroom， and young careerist2)upstarts the 3)precocious toddlers of the urban nursery. It seems reasonable enough to 4)carbon-date the moment loosely to the transition in ethos from 5)Family Ties to 6)Murphy Brown. In recent years reality television has exerted an even more powerful force in displacing the genre， not simply because of its 7)prevalence but also because its commitments to 8)unchecked domestic 9)lunacy render the entertainment value of mere 10)dysfunction， the family sitcom’s lifeblood， 11)obsolete.
12)Arrested Development， which ended in 2006， was the last great family comedy on television， and Modern Family—the best new half-hour of funny television in a season 13)rife with half-hours of funny television—owes a tremendous debt to its predecessor’s style and 14)anthropological vision. Set in a nameless 15)suburbia， the new series (Wednesdays on ABC) examines three families， each representing a specific submission or challenge to contemporary domestic convention. Their connection to one another is best experienced as a surprise， though it’s clear from the start that they are all being filmed for a documentary that will appear on Dutch television， where presumably the 16)Gosselins have not yet taken over the 17)civic imagination. Easily the new season’s best comedy pilot， Modern Family deftly serves up laughs on multiple levels—from 18)understated 19)one-liners to grand sight 20)gags. 21)Flitting among three storylines， it’s smart， 22)nimble and best of all， funny， while actually making a point about the evolving nature of what constitutes “family.” Some 23)thinning of the comedy herd seems likely， and one can only hope that this 24)cream rises to the top.
The themes about family life and its stresses are nothing new， but you couldn’t ask for better execution. The pairing of former 25)Frasier writer-producer Christopher Lloyd and 26)Just Shoot Me’s Steven Levitan has previously yielded 27)Back to You， but this is a vastly superior effort—one that employs some of 28)The Office’s direct-to-camera production style and confessionals without feeling overly precious or like it’s working too hard at being the coolest kid in the room. Modern Family takes an appropriately29)disparaging view of soft-core parental strategies. Phil and Claire stand in for one of the more questionable trends of our time： the tendency of young parents to friend their children rather than discipline them. For Phil especially， played by the fantastic， 30)gesticulating Ty Burrell， family ought to be like 31)Facebook. He is every misguided middle-aged father who believes his teenagers would rather hang out with him than down a couple of 32)Budweiser in the back of a Sunoco station. “I’m the cool dad， that’s my 33)thang，” Phil tells the interviewer by way of introduction. “I’m 34)hip， I surf the Web， I text. LOL： Laugh out Loud. OMG： Oh my God. WTF： Why the Face？” Phil and Claire’s 15-year-old daughter， Haley (Sarah Hyland)， treats the minor demands her parents make of her—always presented as 35)tenuous requests—as if she were being asked to serve two consecutive tours in Afghanistan. Claire (Julie Bowen)， resigned to her lack of influence， lowers her expectations to a bare minimum. Looking into the camera early on， she declares， “If Haley never wakes up on a beach in Florida half-naked， I’ve done my job.”