Would you want them as your family? (My Family)

Member Name: pmcds

Product:	My Family
Date:	24/06/08 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quality 90s style family based sitcom

Disadvantages: Only so much you can do with one family

My Family is a very clever comedy created and made for the BBC. It first aired in 2000, and has run for 8 successful series. A 9th series is in production and the show shows no signs of letting up.

The show follows the Harper family through their daily rituals in a welcome return to family based sitcoms such as 2 Point 4 Children and The Upper Hand from the 1990s. It stars Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker as Ben and Susan Harper as they struggle through life with their three strange children. Lindsay's performance is of a neurotic and anxious man who would rather face the world than his own family half the time, particularly his constantly sexual wife Susan, played brilliantly by Zoe Wanamaker. She seems to be the grounded one of the family as is often the case portrayed in a sitcom, and is in control of her kids where Ben is not.

The three kids are Nick, Janey and Michael. Nick is played by Kris Marshall, and the character is a brainless buffoon who is constantly doing strange things. Daniela Denby-Ashe plays Janey, the traditional daughter who left home for Uni, dropped out and got pregnant and returned home. Michael is played by Gabriel Thomson, a brainiac child who is more in control of his parents than they are of him.

The show was at first criticised for being too old-fashioned, but this soon became its selling point. The political correctness is there, and when it is isn't, it is pointed out by one fo the characters. The entertainment value doesn;t seem to be waning even after 8 years, but I feel that there is only so much you can do with one family before it runs its course. Luckily, My Family has recurring characters that keep popping in and out of the episodes, and the kids do the same, so the viewer is constantly wondering who is going to be in the episode and who isn't. I enjoy watching this, and the comedy value is high.

Summary: My Family - quality sitcom