“The Middle” ran for nine seasons on ABC, from September 30, 2009, to May 22, 2018. That is 215 episodes of a lower middle class family in Orson, Indiana, doing the things families do: work, school, bills, arguments, small wins, smaller losses. It was created by Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline, former writers on “Roseanne” and “Murphy Brown,” and produced by Warner Bros. Television and Blackie and Blondie Productions. It is a sitcom, and it is very good at being one.
Trailer, via TV Promos.
Patricia Heaton and the Heck Family of Orson, Indiana
The show stars Patricia Heaton as Frances “Frankie” Heck, a middle-aged Midwestern woman, and Neil Flynn as her husband Mike. Frankie narrates. She starts the series as an under-performing salesperson at a used-car dealership and later becomes a dental assistant. Mike manages a local quarry and serves as the stabilizing influence in the family, though Frankie complains about his lack of affection at times.
They have three children. Axl, 15, played by Charlie McDermott, is a jock: outgoing, popular, rude, self-centered. Sue, 13, played by Eden Sher, is enthusiastic and perky and chronically unsuccessful and awkward. Brick, 8, played by Atticus Shaffer, is intelligent, a compulsive reader, with odd behavioral traits.
Orson is fictional, based on the real town of Jasper, Indiana. The family is lower middle class. That matters. The show does not pretend otherwise.
A Lower Middle Class Family and the Day-to-Day Struggles
The premise is the daily mishaps of a married woman and her semi-dysfunctional family and their attempts to survive life in general. That is the whole engine. No high concept. No workplace farce, no supernatural hook, no will-they-won’t-they at the center. Just a household in a small Indiana town getting through the week.
The children are quite different from one another, and the show uses that. Axl’s popularity, Sue’s endless failure, Brick’s reading and his odd traits. Other characters include Frankie’s co-worker Bob, a main character in the first two seasons, played by Chris Kattan, and later recurring in season three and a guest in seasons four and five. There is Frankie’s elderly Aunt Edie, Sue’s first boyfriend Brad, Mike’s brother Rusty, and Axl’s friends Sean and Darrin, who both had a relationship with Sue.
The Heck Children: Axl, Sue and Brick
Sue Heck is the show’s best idea. She is chronically unsuccessful and awkward, and the series never asks her to be anything else. She tries, she fails, she tries again. The comedy comes from the gap between her effort and her results, and from the fact that she keeps going anyway. Eden Sher plays her without a wink.
Brick is the second-best idea. An intelligent compulsive reader with odd behavioral traits, in a family that does not quite know what to do with him. Atticus Shaffer plays the kid as a person, not a punchline.
Axl is the weakest of the three on paper — the stereotypical jock, rude and self-centered — and Charlie McDermott makes him work by playing the laziness as a physical condition. The parents are the anchor. Heaton and Flynn have the timing of people who have been married for two decades and stopped performing it.
Why the Casting Around Sue Heck Mattered
The recurring cast is where the show builds its world. Brad Bottig, played by Brock Ciarlelli, was a major recurring character, and on October 5, 2018, it was announced he had joined the cast as a series regular. A few days later, on October 8, 2018, it was reported that Kimberley Crossman would join as Remi, a hotel chef still recovering from a messy breakup that ended with her boyfriend driving away with their food truck and taking all of her dreams with it. Sue would find herself working at the same hotel as Remi.
On October 10, 2018, Finesse Mitchell joined as Hudson, a bartender with a big heart who works at the same hotel as Sue. The next day, it was announced that “Silicon Valley’s” Chris Diamantopoulos would play Sue’s “mercurial, charming and rich” boss Nick, with newcomer Aaron Branch playing Otis, the hotel’s naïve but endearing bellhop.
What “The Middle” Got Right About Money and Work
The show is set in a lower middle class household, and it takes that seriously. Frankie sells used cars badly, then becomes a dental assistant. Mike works a quarry. These are jobs, not backdrops.
The show was praised by television critics and earned numerous award nominations, including a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2012.
The Middle’s Best Episodes, Ranked by What the Show Does Best
Ranking the show’s strengths, in order of how much they carry the series:
- Sue Heck’s chronic failure and persistence — the emotional core, and the thing that makes the show more than a joke machine.
- The Frankie and Mike marriage — two working adults who love each other and are tired, played without sentiment.
- Brick’s compulsive reading and odd traits — the show’s strangest and most specific character.
- The Orson, Indiana setting — a small town that functions as a place, not a punchline.
- Axl’s jock routine — funny in small doses, thin when the show leans on it.
- The recurring cast around Sue — Brad, and later the hotel crew, who give her a life past high school.
That ranking is also a diagnosis. When “The Middle” leans on Sue and on the marriage, it is one of the better family sitcoms of its decade. When it leans on Axl being rude, it is a standard network comedy.
A 7.0 Out of 10 for “The Middle”
The published critical score for “The Middle” is 7.0/10, with a Metacritic score of 70/100. That is about right, and it is not a knock. A 7.0 for a nine-season, 215-episode network sitcom means the show was consistently competent, occasionally excellent, and never a disaster.
The case for higher: Sue Heck is a genuinely original sitcom character, and the show’s refusal to make the family’s money problems disappear is a real artistic choice. The case for lower: the show’s formulas repeat, and the Axl material wears thin across nine seasons.
The case for 7.0 exactly: “The Middle” did the job. It aired from 2009 to 2018. That is a career, not a phenomenon.
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