Malcolm in the Middle debuted at a strange time for the television landscape: standard family-focused sitcoms felt like they had exhausted every premise imaginable, no matter how hilarious the concept might be, yet viewers hadn’t entirely embraced single-camera comedies, as Arrested Development and The Office hadn’t yet premiered. Due to this, it felt like Malcolm in the Middle never earned a foothold in the zeitgeist, and Fox never did the show any favors by often changing up its timeslot throughout any given season. Luckily, the home video and streaming age has helped the series earn a rightful following, inspiring enough demand for a limited-run revival series.
It’s not unsurprising for there to be one breakout star in a sitcom, though in series centered around families, it’s often a younger performer who has their trajectory entirely transformed. Once the series concluded in 2006, star Bryan Cranston would join Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, developing one of the most intense characters of the 21st century with Walter White. As a major relief to Malcolm in the Middle fans, Cranston once again gets to embrace his sillier side for Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, which you can catch glimpses of in the trailer below.
Don’t worry, fans, Cranston isn’t the only returning cast member, as Frankie Muniz, Jane Kaczmarek, Justin Berfield, and Christopher Masterson have all also returned to reprise their roles. The only key character from the original series that sees a new performer taking over is Dewey, who will now be played by Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, as original star Erik Per Sullivan has largely left the acting world behind.
As you can see in the above trailer, now that he’s an adult, Malcolm (Muniz) has been able to distance himself from the chaos of his family in an attempt to lead a calmer life. However, when his parents prepare to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, they demand his presence, no matter how hard he tries to hide. Understandably, this creates a storm of outlandish antics, which includes Malcolm’s chosen family discovering the things he tried to keep from them.
Even though Cranston might have been the series’ breakout, every performer and every character managed to find moments to showcase their talents and their absurdities. Muniz’s Malcolm had the difficult job of trying to be the audience surrogate who was witnessing his family’s antics, securing him a number of award nominations, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Despite that acclaim, Muniz began to pursue other passions as he got older, and is now largely known as a stock car driver.
Having focused his attention elsewhere in recent years, Muniz previously expressed to PEOPLE his apprehension over reuniting with the rest of the cast, though those fears were unwarranted:
“As an adult, you tend to overthink things … and you put more pressure on yourself as well. So I didn’t know what it was gonna be like — if it was going to be easy to be Malcolm, if it was gonna be awkward back with the cast. And not to sound like cliché, but it was as if not a single day went by. All of us — every single person — like instantly fell back into their characters with, I’m talking the first table read.”
Whether this will reinvigorate the actor to take on more roles is yet to be determined.
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