Created for the ABC network by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan, Modern Family is a family sitcom that aired on television from September 2009 to April 2020.
The series ran for 11 seasons and had 250 episodes; the creators conceived the idea for the series while sharing stories about their own families.
Cast
The series had an ensemble cast, including Ed O’Neil as Jay Pritchett, Sofia Vergara as Gloria Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett.
Eric Stonestreet played Cameron Tucker, Sarah Hyland played Haley Dunphy, Ariel Winter played Alex Dunphy, Nolan Gould played Luke Dunphy, and Rico Rodriguez played Manny Delgado.
Aubrey Anderson-Emons as Lily Tucker-Pritchett, Jeremy Maguire as Joe Pritchett, and Reid Ewing as Dylan Marshall completed the show’s lead cast.
The series also had several recurring characters.
Premise
The series is in a mockumentary style, and the characters speak directly to the camera in an interview manner.
Modern Family has its setting in suburban Los Angeles and follows the lives of three different types of families- a nuclear family, a blended one, and same-sex- with Jay Pritchett as their patriarch.
The families are interrelated because of Jay Pritchett, his son Mitchell and his daughter Claire. Jay remarries with a younger woman, Gloria, and sires a son named Joe Pritchett. From her previous marriage, Gloria has a son, Manny Delgado. Jay’s and Gloria’s former spouses also made appearances on the show.
Jay’s daughter, Claire, is the chief executive officer of his business ‘Pritchett’s Closets and Blinds.’ Her realtor husband, Phil Dunphy, and she have three children- a teenage daughter Haley, a nerdy and intelligent daughter Alex, and their only son Luke. Dylan is Haley’s on and off boyfriend.
Mitchell is Jay’s son and is a lawyer by profession. Mitchell lives with his husband, Cameron Tucker, and the two adopt a daughter of Vietnamese origin. The two adopt another child, a boy named Rexford, in the series finale.
Modern Family documents the comical situations encountered by these modern-day families.
Reception
Modern Family received positive reviews from critics for its initial seasons. The series started receiving mixed reviews from the critics as the storyline progressed.
Despite the mixed critic reviews, the series remained popular among its loyal fan base. Fans adored all the 11 seasons of Modern Family.
The penultimate season received positive reviews from the critics, and the first-run viewership of the final episode was 7.37 million. The documentary that aired before the series finale had a first-run viewership of 6.72 million.
Accolades
Modern Family enjoyed massive success through all eleven seasons; it was the tenth-highest revenue-generating show in 2012.
The show won in the Outstanding Comedy Series category for the initial five years of its run at the Emmy Awards. For their portrayal of Phil Dunphy and Cameron Tucker, Ty Burrell and Eric Stonestreet won the Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the Emmy Awards twice each.
For her portrayal of Claire Dunphy, Julie Bowen won the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the Emmy Awards twice.
From 75 nominations at the Emmy Awards, Modern Family has won 22 Emmys. The series also won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2011.