Who's up for a rousing game of Truth or Claire?

I haven't written about Modern Family in awhile because I have already made my feelings about the show pretty clear (I love it) and it is kind of tough to write an entire column every week about a half-hour sitcom. But last night's episode, "Hawaii", was too good not to talk about, if for no other reason than to rehash some of the awesome zingers.

This episode was the second in a three-part season finale dealing with the family going on vacation to Hawaii for Jay's birthday. Generally, I hate these "The Gang Goes on Vacation, Check Out These Fish Out of Water"-type episodes, but the Modern Family writers have proven that they are smart enough to avoid making these episodes feel hackneyed.

"Hawaii" followed the typical "3 main stories, with a couple of peripheral stories" format that works so well on this show. The first story involves Phil and Claire (a.k.a the prettiest white woman on Maui), who get a chance to have the honeymoon they never got when they got married because Claire was pregnant with Hailey ("My bad!!!"). Phil, of course, is more into the whole thing than Claire is. She claims that she is "a mom traveling with three children, this is not a vacation, this is a business trip". Undeterred, as always, Phil attempts to carry her across the threshold (a.k.a. the hotel lobby) but can only lift her about halfway. "God, you're solid," Phil gasps. Great line.

For me, the best part of this episode were the scenes with Manny and Luke, who are forced to share a hotel room. I absolutely love these two characters together. ABC should consider lending them out to the Disney Channel for a Suite Life With Zach and Cody-esque spin off where Manny and Luke are sent away to boarding school together. You know you would watch that. Luke breaks in the hotel room by jumping on the beds, Manny inspects the closets ("Score, there's an iron in here!" An iron that Luke ends up making prison-style grilled cheese sandwiches with). While Manny unpacks his linen jacket and fedora, Luke throws a shower cap over his face and arms himself with a hotel hairdryer, transforming into a "Bathroom Martian from the Nebula of the Great Toilet". Classic. Later, Luke complains to his family that, "Manny is the worst roommate ever, everything he finds, he folds. Last night we had a fire drill. Not the hotel, just us."

Jay is dealing with a reminder from his brother than their father died when he was Jay's age, 63, by abandoning his plans of relaxation and indulgence in favor a commitment to get back in shape. This leads to a couple of decent sight gags involving Jay pulling his back out and getting stuck in a hammock with Phil.

Meanwhile, Cam and Mitchell take relaxation a bit too far, losing Lily, not once but twice. The first time in the hotel and the second time at a banana plantation. This was probably the weakest of the stories, but it did lead to the best line of the night. Panicked, Mitchell questions Cam's wardrobe choice for Lily, "Why did you dress her in jungle print?! She's going to think she is back in Vietnam!" I nearly spit out my Natty Boh. I love it when they make jokes about Lily's Asain roots, like when Jay calls her his "little potsticker" early on in the season.

Taking advantage of the lack of parental supervision, Hailey gets drunk and ends up sick in the hotel bathroom. Claire warns her, "One minute you're having wine coolers and the next minute the game Truth or Claire sweeps your high school." Damn, that sounds like a kick-ass game.

Eventually Phil realizes why he and Claire can't have a true honeymoon; they haven't had a real wedding. In true MF fashion, the episode ends with the whole family coming together for and "awwww" moment. Phil surprises Claire with a ceremony at which they renew their vows while a Hawaiian guy plays a sweet ukulele version of "Eye of The Tiger".

As hilarious as this episode was, the best part of it was getting to see all of the female characters in bathing suits. Here are my grades:
Claire: B-
She appears to have had a boob job awhile ago and they are starting to kind of separate. Not great.
Gloria: B
Pretty nice, but she is working with some seriously large thighs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I think I detected a bit of cellulite.
Hailey: A
Although we don't get to see her in a full bathing suit, we get a scene with her in a bikini top. My thoughts on Hailey are already on record so I won't beat dead horse. I probably would have given an A+ but her bathing suit scene happened right after she threw up and was flopped on the bathroom floor. Well, actually now that I think about it, that makes it even hotter: A fucking +.
Alex: A+
Who doesn't enjoy a pre-teen in a bikini? Kidding, kidding, calm down people.

Modern Family is really funny. You should watch it.

Modern Family is the kind of special little show that makes sitting through all of the normal network TV dreck worth it. It isn't over the top, or in your face, or obscene; it is just charming, funny, and it makes you feel good when you watch. All of the characters, with the possible exception of Claire, are extremely likable. (It is sort of strange that I have found her to be pretty cold; the actress that plays her, Julie Bowen, was extremely sweet and sympathetic as Carol in, another understated, feel-good network comedy, Ed. Also, FYI, she is from Baltimore.)

I'm glad the writers have kind of moved away from the hip lingo shtick with Phil. If they had kept up the "keepin' it reals" with the same intensity as was present in the first couple episodes that well would certainly be dry by now. Thankfully, they have shifted the focus of Phil's jokes mainly to his semi-obvious, semi-creepy infatuation with Gloria, his step-mother-in-law.

Ed O'Neil is perfect in his role as old-fashioned, stuck in his ways, grouch who turns out, when pushed and prodded, to be pretty accepting. Despite his stubbornness, he is the glue that keeps the family together. After all, this show isn't about Phil's parents or siblings, or Cam's or Gloria's.

I like the choice the writers have made to let the viewer into the family details and back story incrementally and naturally. In each episode we get a new nugget that provides insight into who these characters are and how they ended up as a "family". This week's was that Cam, the big flamboyantly gay guy, was a standout division one offensive lineman in college and like Ed O'Neil's Jay, a big Fighting Illini fan. I hope in future episodes they give us a glimpse into how Jay and Gloria ended up getting together (sort of like the "Casablanca" bit last week with Cam and Mitchell). How does an balding, slightly overweight, at least semi-biggoted, old geezer end up marrying a fiery, young latina?

Lets just hope this show last long enough for us to find out. Unfortunately, it is promising, new shows like this that networks always seem to pull the plug on after a season; and yet somehow Big Bang Theory has been on for what seems like decades.

Wednesday: Glee Vs. Modern Family

Wednesday nights are tough: Two legitimate television contenders, both starting at 9 PM. This predicament began when FOX aired the pilot for its new musical comedy Glee after an episode of last season’s American Idol. (Gayest sentence ever.) I checked the show out and discovered that it was pretty damn good despite the fact that I felt like kind of a 'mo for enjoying it. (I’ll be the first to admit it. I like gay-ass shows. Actually, it isn’t even that some of the shows I like are really gay per se; it’s just that their target demographic is the teenage female. From Dawson’s Creek to Laguna Beach; I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve sat through Noxzema commercials with Jennifer Love Hewitt all the way to Hayden Panetierre and every fresh faced teen spokes-model in between.)

I don’t know why every network doesn’t have a prime-time show that takes place in a high school. (How many more shitty crime dramas with acronym titles do we need? I don’t understand how these shows stay on the air. I don’t know anyone who has watched even a second of NCIS and it is painful to see what the CSI franchise has done to the legacies of David Caruso and Gary Sinese. Off the top of my head, here is a list of good recent cop/crime investigation shows: NYPD Blue, Homicide, The Wire, The Shield and that’s pretty much it. Also, I am sick hospital dramas (get it?); the first couple of seasons of E.R. were good and I guess a lot of people like Grey’s Anatomy but the rest suck.) High school shows are almost always entertaining. Here are some of the best: Freaks and Geeks, The O.C., My So Called Life, Strangers With Candy, Friday Night Lights, Saved By The Bell, Boston Public, Boy Meets World (the middle seasons)… I could go on all day.

Which brings us back to Glee. It might be a little too early to tell, but this show seems to have all of the makings of another quality high school show: A group of teens from different social strata who must learn to work together, a teacher tasked with keeping this group together who ends up learning as much from the kids and they learn from him, evil cheerleaders (and an evil cheerleading coach), weighty and topical subject matter (pregnancy, teacher/student sexual relationships, teen homosexuality), and of course plenty of attractive young actors/actresses (Lea Michele, the girl who plays Rachel, is one of those strange kinds of hot. Her nose and mouth are completely out of proportion with the rest of her face but it doesn't even matter.). It doesn't hurt that the writing on the show is down right clever. My favorite line so far: Kurt, the hillariously flaming drama geek, to the head football coach- "My name is Kurt Hummel and I am auditioning for the role of kicker!".

The biggest problem facing Glee right now is it time slot. It begins at the same time as this season's other promising new comedy, Modern Family.

I have begun to forgo the first half of Glee in favor of ABC's Modern Family, the latest effort to make the lives suburban families funny. The "modern" in the title, I assume, refers to the fact that only one of the 3 families in show (we find out late in the pilot episode that these three families are really part of one larger extended family) is a traditional nuclear family. The other two families are a gay couple who have recently adopted an Asian baby named Lily ("Won't that name be hard for her to say?" Cut to me slapping my knee.) and a family consisting of a spicy Latina divorcee, her strangely mature son Manny ("Ugh, kids, you don't have to tell me, my school is full of them"), and a surprisingly old looking Al Bundy. For my money, the two "non-traditional" families are the most interesting. Al Bundy's relationship with his step-son Manny has the potential for some comedy gold. Ditto for the chemistry and dynamic between the two gay dudes. Modern Family is the kind of TV show that I love and (unlike Glee) has the potential for real staying power. This show is character and dialog driven and is not based on sight gags or gimmicks. The pilot episode was absolutely brilliant, but unfortunately the following two were less so. Even so, the show is good enough to make me miss half of another good show each week.

"You think this is hard. I'm living with Hepatitis, that's hard." -Glee
"The only way his dad is like superman is that he landed in this country illegally."-Modern Family