Revue “ Mid-Century Modern '': a nod to the “Golden Girls” and Linda Lavin

It is with a combination of sadness and gratitude that I greet “Mid-Century Modern”, a new Sitcom Multicamera, in the first Friday on Hulu, a streamer that is not known elsewhere to create multicamera sitcoms. Like the last work of Linda LavinWho died while the first season of the series was in production, the show offers him a solid platform, I am happy to say, and that she is not at all like a person who is ready to leave this stage of the world but who is rather full of life and in complete possession of his gifts. It is flawless in a series which, if it is not flawless, is as funny as one could reasonably wait for it. And because it is so very good and alive, it is increasingly sad to contemplate what we have lost. But maybe I'm just soft this way.

Created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan (“Will & Grace”), and made everywhere by James Burrows (“Taxi”, “Cheers”, also “Will & Grace”), the show is very vaguely based on “The Golden Girls”, As three gay friends – Nathan Lane like Bunny, Matt Bomer While Jerry and Nathan Lee Graham like Arthur – move together after the death of a fourth, in a house also occupied by Bunny's mother, Sybil (Lavin). (The title of the series only seems to apply to the house, a signature style in Palm Springs, where the series is defined, and whose gay conviviality is reported in more than one joke, for example, “this place is so gay, even the trees are named Joshua.”) There is a unique correspondence between the characters in the two sitcoms, which is not worth more.

The main loan from “The Golden Girls” is that the tracks are … not young, not young “friends”, anyway. Bomer, the child in this scenario, is 47 years old, although you do not know it to look at him, or his character, an unseen innocent who sees everywhere and that nothing excites more than the prospect of a concert by Donny Osmond. (Jerry was raised Mormon.) Graham is 56 years old, Lane 69, Lavin was 87 years old. Pamela Adlon, who arrives a few episodes to play a recurring role as Bunny's difficult sister, is 58 years. They connect or try to do so. They perform dance routines.

What is perhaps the most original of “Mid-Century Modern”, although I miss a historical precedent, is that it is a traditional sitcom, not only with a gay or two character but takes place mainly in a gay environment, its subject of friendship among gay men-which has the salutary effect of making this environment both the point and next to the point. It is particularly encouraging to see this at a time when LGBTQ +rights, and even the right to identity, are attacked – A subject addressed in an episode in which Jerry invites their neighbor, a right -wing member, to dinner.

Bunny has a Brassiere store chain, The Bunny Hutch, established by his late father, he therefore has the resources to welcome his friends, whom he invited to live with him and feed them and others. He is the least sure of the three and has eyebrows designed to express concern. On -board agent Jerry, meanwhile, navigates a flow of apard and beauty; Bommer, not generally associated with this kind of comedy, is vigorously silly, although it is sometimes called to be a voice of wisdom. (These aspects are not entirely gel, but everyone is individually effective.) And Posh Arthur, formerly of Vogue, has a feeling of firm superiority if not completely deserved. (It is offended that their late friend is buried “in a three -end blazer – and all three are buttoned”.)

Judd Hirsch with Linda Lavin in “Mid-Century Modern”. It was his last role on the screen before his death at the end of last year.

(Chris Haston / Disney)

Lane is not an actor who has ever missed work, but the only thing that escaped him in her very winning stage and screen career is a main role in a successful situation comedy. (He made appearances in many others.) He threw his hat for the last time in the ring with the “Charlie Lawrence” of 2002, in which he played a gay actor elected to the congress, drawn by CBS after two episodes; Before it was 1998 “Again! Even!” With Lane as an opera singer, sidelined by a throat injury, canceled in his first season with two episodes left in the air.

The fact that the “modern middle of the century” will succeed is, of course, for the time to say, but the fact that – although in the model of a broadcast network program, despite the language – it comes from Hulu means that its first season of 10 episodes will be at least intact and that, depending on certain non -scientific goods, without data data, the chances of the second are good. It takes an episode to really be launched, and there is a tonal distance between genital jokes and everyone and family expressions that form the heart of history – the feelings of a multicamera comedy in its space in real time and without space, without style, without style, are particularly fit. (We are all in it together.) But it's funny and in a good mood; has excellent invited appearances of Vanessa Bayer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Richard Kind and Cheri Oteri (as a signing, in intoxication); And gives Judd Hirsch (90) to Lavin as a final stage partner – and also gives him a song to sing – in a meeting as sweet and well played as we could wish. Except it's final.