1. Summary

Modern Family is an American mockumentary  comedy TV series. The half-hour series, which was created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan, is produced by Fox Television Studios. The mockumentary  follows the families of Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill), his daughter Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen), and his son Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) who live in Los Angeles. Claire is a homemaker  mom married to Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell); they have three children. Jay is married to a much younger Colombian woman, Gloria (Sofía Vergara), and is helping her raise her pre-teen son, Manny. Mitchell and his partner Cameron Tucker (Eric Stonestreet) have adopted a Vietnamese baby, Lily. The show premiered on ABC on September 23, 2009 to critical acclaim.  It has been named as a big contender for the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards.  Also at a poll by the Los Angeles Times to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and beat three year in a row winner 30 Rock.

The series premiered on the American Broadcasting Company with the pilot episode and premiered with 12.61 million viewers. Soon after the series was picked up for a full season on October 8, 2009. On January 12, 2010, Modern Family was renewed for a second season by ABC. The syndication rights to the show have also been sold to USA Network for a Fall 2013 premiere.

2. Conception

While working in the office, Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan were telling stories about their family and they thought that could be a show idea, and started working around the idea of a family being observed in a mockumentary style show. They then later decided it would be a show about three families and their experiences. The show was originally called My American Family. Originally, the camera crew would be run by a Dutch filmmaker named Geert Floortje who had lived with Jay’s family as a teenage exchange student and developed a crush on Claire (while Mitchell had a crush on him), but decided against it.

3. Pickup

The series quickly became a priority for ABC after the pilot episode tested high with focus groups, resulting in the network ordering 13 episodes and adding it to the 2009–2010 fall lineup days ahead of ABC’s official schedule announcement. The series was given a full season pickup on October 8, 2009.

On January 12, 2010, ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson announced that Modern Family had been renewed for a second season.

4. Critical reception

The first season has been met with unanimously positive reviews. It received a ‘critically acclaimed’ Metacritic score of 86 out of 100. Entertainment Weekly gave it an A−, calling it “…immediately recognizable as the best new sitcom of the fall…”. In Time’s review the show was named “the funniest new family comedy of the year.” It has also been compared to the 1970s series Soap, in regards to the multiple family aspect, as well as Arrested Development. Some have made comparisons to The Office and Parks and Recreation, due to their mockumentary formats. BuddyTV named the show the 2nd best show in 2009 saying “Every actor is fantastic, every family is interesting, and unlike many shows, there isn’t a weak link.