Besides me does anybody else find it hard to believe, that last nights The Middle episode is the last new episode of the show that we are going to get before imdb.com takes down these message boards. Does anybody have any thoughts about the episode that they would like to share?
shareYes. It was nothing but filler.
A pipe breaks in the basement. Nobody helps Frankie and Mike. They argue. The kids show up, more arguments. In the end, everybody understands one another. Frankie has some pithy narrative.
Is there anybody but me who wanted to see Brick falling down those stairs? I can't stand him. He's even more annoying this season. As if a kid like him, who's either constantly reading or constantly on the computer, can't figure out how to submit a school paper on-line. And that he literally waited until the very last second to do so is MEGA annoying.
How odd that Axl had the money to buy everybody lunch. Does he even have a job?
And what happened to the love of his life? She's disappeared awfully quick.
Does anybody have any thoughts about the episode that they would like to share?
I was disappointed that they didn't do a Valentine's episode this year. All of the "holiday" episodes this season have been terrible! The show has taken a much darker tone this season. There have been a few episodes that were funny but for the most part it hasn't been very good. I always look forward to watching this show (have since it started) but I am losing interest. I see that it has already been renewed for season 9. Hopefully it will be a better season.
shareMy heart jumped when Brick fell on the stairs. I'm glad they didn't show it!
I liked the episode. I like them all. My favorite episode is generally the last one I saw. I really appreciate that they make these shows and that they make them available for me to watch for free.
I watched the first six seasons of The Middle and Modern Family, and all the other Wednesday and Tuesday comedies that have come and gone, without message boards. I had dialup internet at the beginning and I used IMDB but not the message boards - I never looked at them until I got my smartphone about two years ago.
Btw does anybody remember the show with Kelsey Grammer that was on for a few weeks in the first hour along with The Middle? Which one was in the first half hour? That's one thing I can't remember. Also, a year or two earlier there was a show with him and Patricia Heaton where they played local TV news co-anchors who had worked together years earlier and were working together again - and now she had a daughter. That ran less than a season too. It was created by the same guys who created Modern Family, who had both been writers on Frasier - the father of one of them had also been a writer on Frasier. The cast included Phil Dunphy and his Dad, Fred Willard, from Modern Family. I can't remember them from the show but I'm guessing Fred Willard was the weather guy and Phil was sports.
I was familiar with Fred Willard since Fernwood Tonight but when Modern Family started I didn't remember Ty Burrell, who plays Phil, from any other show. Phil was the only character on the show that I didn't understand or believe - like the way Jay, his father in law, feels about him. But the moment Fred Willard appeared as Phil's father - by Skype - I understood Phil completely! That's one of my most astounding TV moments.
I used to watch some of the CBS crime shows. Once I was trying watch a tape full of episodes of Criminal Minds - to see the shows, not just to free up a tape! - and I realized that show is a weekly tutorial on mass murder. I saw that all TV is educational, whether it means to be or not.
I won't miss IMDB's emphasis on ranking things, which is also a big subject on the message boards. I won't miss the threads about how awful the child actors are when they dare to grow up. Btw, how many people are aware of the first three seasons of Lassie? I wasn't until I saw them a few years ago on a vintage TV channel. The main title says "Jeff's Collie" on the TV broadcasts but the TV schedule just calls it "Lassie" - they changed the title for syndicated reruns, since the new Lassie with Timmy was still running. Lassie's boy Jeff was played by Tommy Rettig, who is great in an earlier film called "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T" which is a live action Dr. Seuss movie. At the beginning of the third season they introduced Timmy as a runaway who was hiding in their barn. Apparently they planned to have Jeff's mother adopt Timmy, then Jeff was to go to high school in another town. But the actor who played Jeff's grandfather died. So they had the grandfather in the show die, and Jeff and his mother moved to the city and sold the farm to a childless couple who also adopted Timmy! His mother for the rest of that season was Chloris Leachman. At the start of the fourth season his mother was June Lockheart and he had a new father too. If all that hadn't happened, and Jeff's Mom had adopted Timmy and stayed on the farm with Gramps while Jeff went to high school in the city, I wonder if Jeff would have been back every week!
The show with Kelsey Grammer was called HANK and lasted only ten episodes before ABC cancelled it. It ran in the 8 o'clock slot on Wednesdays. When it got cancelled, ABC flled the spot with reruns of other shows and specials. The Middle took the slot the next year.
The first mom on Lassie was played by Jan Clayton, I believe. She had a long history with alcoholism, and that's why she left the show.
Didn't Jeff have a friend who wore a hat like Jughead and was a bit portly?
If memory serves me, Lassie was broadcast at 7 on CBS every Sunday. It ended with Lassie sitting in a field and extending her paw to the audience.
The Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton show was called Back to You. The summary says Fred Willard was the sports guy, they had a weather lady, and Ty Burrell played an eager beaver who got all the bad assignments - a reporter, I guess (they probably needed one of those) The ABC Kelsey Grammer show was called "Hank" and it and The Middle started in the same week, one week after Modern Family. So The Middle was moved when Hank was cancelled?
Jeff's friend was called Porky and the actor was related to the owner and trainer of Lassie - so was the actor who played Pugsly Addams. I read (here) that Tommy Rettig was hired for Lassie in part because he had worked with Lassie's trainer who provided the boy's dog in the Dr. T movie, and they knew that he was good with dogs.