Mid-Century Modern - now streaming on Hulu

[The8re phan]

Posted: 3/28/25 at 7:43pm

this show is FANTASTIC......... brilliantly written with a perfect cast, and Linda Lavin at her absolute best

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/28/25 at 9:07pm

I'm only half way through--and I can already tell there'll be a hole in the show when Lavin leaves, but it's working far better for me than I ever expected, and I think the best work from creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan (plus all the other writers) since the best era of Will and Grace, which admittedly given their track record may sound like faint praise.  The cast really has chemistry, for the most part the guest star cameos have worked for me and not overwhelmed the show like they did on W&G and as a slightly raunchier take on traditional sitcoms I think they pretty much nailed it.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 3/28/25 at 9:16pm

I attended a taping and it was beyond glorious watching Nathan Lane, Linda Lavin and the rest of the cast do their magic. Every scene is filmed about 4 times straight thru with each one having new jokes inserted so they have options during post-production. The legendary James Burrows directed every episode (as he did on WILL & GRACE) so his masterful touch is present. 

[BentleyB]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 10:05am

We have watched 5 episodes and I just wish they would have done this without the annoying laugh track.  It’s cute and humorous at times, but the “audience” reaction is just annoying. 

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 1:46pm

It’s not a laugh track, it’s filmed in front of a live audience.

[quizking101]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 2:30pm

I just finished the entire series. It certainly not the most inventive sitcom they could’ve come up with, but it definitely fills that sort of comfort food style of television that often times we all desperately seek when we watch reruns of our old favorites.

Both of the Nathans are absolutely hilarious and they play very well off each other. Matt Bomer’s character is still a little too daft for me, and I understand the urge to create a Rose style character, but it made his more tender moments, feel artificial. Lavin was a hoot and it’s almost sad that you watch every episode knowing that the one where she’s gone for good is coming up

[Dan6]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 2:43pm

iluvtheatertrash said: "It’s not a laugh track, it’s filmed in front of a live audience."

Even when there is a live audience for a sitcom, laugh tracks are routinely used in post-production to "sweeten" the live track.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 2:49pm

BentleyB said: "We have watched 5 episodes and I just wish they would have done this without the annoying laugh track. It’s cute and humorous at times, but the “audience” reaction is just annoying."

I attended a taping/filming so I can confirm the series was filmed in front of a live studio audience. And I agree, watching it live the overdone laughs aren’t noticeable in person but on TV they seem to be almost after every joke. In person you’re caught in the moment with the laughing but it plays back annoying when you watch it on TV. 

[macbeth]

Posted: 3/29/25 at 3:04pm

I think they did too much comparing of it to THE GOLDEN GIRLS, but it's pretty good in an old fashioned kind of way. Has it been renewed? 

[Dreamboy3]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 8:58am

Oy.  I guess I’m an outlier here. I felt bad for all of the actors other than Lavin who lifted the material and brought the only humor.  Not sure what the plan is but if the role is to be recast that actor will have big shoes to fill. The writing got a little better over the course of the 3 episodes I saw but, in my opinion, but it never got beyond mediocre. . 

[Bwaygurl2]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 9:09am

Dreamboy3 said: "Oy. I guess I’m an outlier here. I felt bad for all of the actors other than Lavin who lifted the material and brought the only humor. Not sure what the plan is but if the role is to be recast that actor will have big shoes to fill.The writing got a little better over the course of the 3 episodes I saw but, in my opinion, but it never got beyond mediocre. ."

I agree. I was cringing from the first cold open onwards. The cast is great but the writing is so corny. 

[quizking101]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 9:18am

Dreamboy3 said: "Oy. I guess I’m an outlier here. I felt bad for all of the actors other than Lavin who lifted the material and brought the only humor. Not sure what the plan is but if the role is to be recast that actor will have big shoes to fill.The writing got a little better over the course of the 3 episodes I saw but, in my opinion, but it never got beyond mediocre. ."

Based on the course of events in the show, it seems like Pamela Adlon’s character was being groomed as the successor 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 9:18am

Dreamboy3 said: "Oy. I guess I’m an outlier here. I felt bad for all of the actors other than Lavin who lifted the material and brought the only humor. Not sure what the plan is but if the role is to be recast that actor will have big shoes to fill.The writing got a little better over the course of the 3 episodes I saw but, in my opinion, but it never got beyond mediocre. ."

They're not recasting (as will be clear if you get to the end). It looks like they're positioning the sister to be the replacement as the fourth character, which is unfortunate since I find her actively unpleasant (vs. Lavin's, who dished it out but was fun).

[east side story]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 10:24am

Takes a few episodes to get moving, but I do agree the writing could be much sharper. Not sure what Bomer is trying to accomplish here, but I do know it comes across as quite amateur. His work resembles the effort of a first year acting student. Very unsure and occasionally attempting to paint with broad strokes without the pathos or the grounding presence needed to pull it off. Or it could be as simple as he is just not funny. Having said that, I hope it gets picked up for a second season, giving this team the chance to continue telling these stories in a better capacity.

Updated On: 3/31/25 at 10:24 AM

[communitytheatergal88]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 11:00am

I enjoyed this.  It is hard to believe that Linda Lavin was 87 and had cancer when filming this.  She looked great, was totally sharp.  Seemed at least a decade younger.  What a loss

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 11:21am

I am confused by Bomer's casting at age 47. Am I just delusional in thinking that his age is not in the same category as the two other leads (56 and 69)? I guess he is only nine years younger than the next guy, who is only 13 years younger than Nathan Lane.  At least with Golden Girls, Betty and Bea were both 63, Estelle was 62, and Rue was only 51, which they wrote into the series with Blanche's lines about being younger than the other girls, but she was also still the butt jokes about her old age. Will Matt Bomer have jokes about how old he and Nathan both are, event hough they are 22 years apart? Or is this an unnecessary Golden Girls comparison? Should they have cast another actor in his 50s/60s instead? What do a 47 year old and a 69 year old have in common in terms of life experiences? 

[The Other One]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 11:30am

Nathan might be 69 in life, but his character doesn't seem to be.  He seems to be in his 50s, the older brother to a sister who might even still be in her 40s.  Other problems one might have with the show aside, I don't think there is an obvious age gap between any of the characters

Updated On: 3/31/25 at 11:30 AM

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 11:34am

The constant literal comparisons to THE GOLDEN GIRLS is getting exhausting. MID-CENTURY MODERN loosely followed the concept and isn’t a direct remake of THE GOLDEN GIRLS. Everyone making direct comparisons to every detail need to just stop. 

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 11:45am

Matt Bomer is pretty and talented, but only in dramatic acting. His embarrassing role on the revival of Will and Grace proved that. 

[jpbran]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 11:50am

Have only seen first two eps, but Bomer's performance is sooo cringy. It's like he's in a different show... It's very "Madonna on Will & Grace" or "straight guy playing gay on SNL" (yes I know he's gay IRL) as far as his line deliveries etc. Trying to play younger and ditzier than he obviously is doesn't land well at all. Maybe he smooths it out, but it's borderline painful to watch and listen to...

[BJR]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 12:09pm

Wanted to love this but it's so painfully formulaic. Only a few in but I'm not seeing a unique voice, POV. It indeed feels like so many other shows. It almost feels like watching a re-run of a sitcom made decades ago - a minor one you forgot about.

[east side story]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 12:18pm

Don’t expect the Golden Girls comparisons to stop any time soon. It was sold to the public as such by the production team before cameras were even rolling in late 2024. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 12:39pm

EricMontreal22 said: "I'm only half way through--and I can already tell there'll be a hole in the show when Lavin leaves, but it's working far better for me than I ever expected, and I think the best work from creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan (plus all the other writers) since the best era of Will and Grace, which admittedly given their track record may sound like faint praise. "

Lavin did great work on the show but I actually thought the last episode, which heavily featured Pamela Adlon and Richard Kind, was by far the best of the series. Adlon, who will replace Lavin if the show gets picked up for a second season, can more organically be woven into plots with the other three roommates. During the first 8 episodes, it was sometimes a struggle finding reasons for Lavin to hang out with her son's friends, which is less of an issue with a sister figure than a mom figure.  

Meanwhile Kind, who is never playing anything other than Richard Kind, is a great comedic foil for Nathan Lane. He probably wouldn't be brought back as a series regular, but the shlubby Jewish guy with no personal boundaries and a one sided infatuation with Lane, I thought was a slightly funnier angle for driving Lane nuts, than yet another overbearing, Jewish mother (not that Lavin's character was a one dimensional stereotype, her befriending a phone scammer was a great subversion).   

Matt Bomer was the weakest link on the show for me, at least as written. Rose from Golden Girls is very clearly what they're going with his role, but while Rose was ditsy, she was also the most emotionally intelligent character on Golden Girls. Bomer's character is just stupid, and inconsistently so. He's also not as good of an actor as Betty White, though that's probably a ridiculously high bar.   

[GiantsInTheSky2]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 12:49pm

Sadly, I’m also a member of Team Disappointed.

I love all three of these actors. I have seen each of them onstage and in several film & TV projects. The material is beneath them. It’s a great concept, but weighed down by painfully bad writing and even worse direction.

This seems to be a problem with sitcoms across the board these days, where everything is unnaturally overacted and written almost as a caricature of what sitcoms used to be. It comes off more of a soap opera with a laugh track than a true comedy. 

I couldn’t even get to Linda Lavin, because every laugh I had in the first ten minutes of the first episode wasn’t at a joke, but the execution and delivery. Nathan Lane came out looking the best, IMO, but he can only do so much with what he’s given. Bomer sadly comes out looking mediocre, and made me realize that his performance in the W&G revival was a sincere attempt and not rooted in parody. Yikes. 

“After we made it through the nightmare of the 80s, I just figured we’d all live forever.” “I just can’t get over how sad it is that George was found by a UPS guy.”  All delivered with the nuance & subtly of a college Shakespeare production. 

I’m sure I come off as a bitter betty, but I was so excited for this and really wanted to love it. 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 3/31/25 at 1:52pm

The Golden Girls comparisons are valid and won't go away as long as the show seems to be deliberately aping the earlier show.

- The pilot where the owner of the house jumps into a fast relationship (one week for Blanche, one night for Bunny) that threatens the ability of the others to live there, ending with the "you're my family" group scene.

- Although ultimately aired much later in the first season, TGG's original second episode featured one of the characters desperately in need of work and job hunting, just like the second episode here.

- The owner of the house has a sister s/he doesn't get along with who comes for a visit while going through tough times (episode 3 here; episode 4 there), which leads to reconciliation.

- The episode where the housemates hire a housekeeper who doesn't do any work but who they're reluctant to fire, so the mother has to confront the housekeeper for them.

- The episode where they all get sick at the same time.

- The episode where the mother reunites with the husband of a recently deceased friend and they end up in bed together.

If they didn't want the comparisons, they wouldn't be so deliberately echoing source material they're very aware of (and have acknowledged).

Updated On: 3/31/25 at 01:52 PM