by Glenn Rose

Modern Family is a family comedy that was started in 2009 by Steven Levitan, and Christopher Lloyd who are both known from the show Wings in the 1990s. The show centers around one family that has three different types of families in it. First there are the Dunphy’s, who play the role of the “traditional” family in the show with a mother, father, two daughters and a son. The father (Phil Dunphy) is a bumbling nitwit through the entire show, with a wife (Claire Dunphy) who plays the role of the neurotic frazzled mother who is forced to pick up the pieces of her family’s shenanigans. Their kids are a ditzy, late high schooler, a smart well rounded daughter and a youngest son who is a spitting image of his father in the area of smarts. Claire is the daughter of Jay Pritchett who is a rich older man that got remarried to a Columbian fireball named Gloria, who has a son that is very precocious. Jay’s son in the show (Claire’s brother [Mitchell Pritchett]) is a very straight laced, gay man with a husband who is loud and dramatic. Later into the show they adopt a young Vietnamese girl named Lily and they begin to deal with the difficulties of raising a child in their own way.

This show is an important change to the standard family dynamic usually portrayed on TV. This show, shows that you don’t need to be “normal” in order to raise a family right, or have a loving environment. In such an important time for the progression of gay rights, this show helps the image that there is no great terror that gay parenting would cause for future generations. Also it takes down some of the stigmas of age differences in marriages. Jay and Gloria have what seems in the show to be a very loving, understanding marriage with comical issues that do stem from the age difference, and also their cultural differences. But still, in the end they’re happy and loving the whole way through.

If you remember Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park talking about the Chaos Theory, this show is a perfect showing of that in real life. In case you don’t know what the Chaos Theory is or don’t remember it, it’s basically: Anything that can go wrong, will. Everything that happens in the show is just winding up a whole new, awkward or ridiculous situation that is about to happen.

This show is a heartwarming, uproarious comedy that I don’t think anyone should go without seeing.

Airs Wednesdays at 9pm on ABC. New season begins September 25th with a 1-Hour Season Premiere.