What I’m Watching: Modern Family

Modern Family: Season 7, Episode 10 “Playdates” (C)

In this episode, we have the same setup as most installments of this show recently: some good broad comedy that gets turned into something less funny because it’s just too forced and often equally random. Phil not being able to resist picking up the check when their rich friends refused to take any action makes sense as something that all people have to deal with at least once in their lifetime, and it could have stopped with the exaggerated moment of Claire hurling Phil’s credit card onto the check. Why did it have to be about Phil having lost a bet about which of their wives would unknowingly eat more crickets? I like Keegan Michael-Key but I’m not always convinced that he’s so well used in the many guest spots and film roles he gets. On the guest star front, we also had the venerable Orson Bean, who got to act older than Jay and then made a quip about him not having heard about streaming when he was advocating the advent of mail-in Netflix as revolutionary. Ray Liotta starring as himself was just a chance to show that young people don’t necessarily appreciate the culture of their elders or even their parents’ generation. Barbra Streisand’s voice cameo was appropriately brief and fitting for how a celebrity might respond to an unwelcome overeager fan. There’s not much to say about Lily’s inappropriate crush or Manny’s mustache other than that they were decently amusing but didn’t really land the way that they should have to be truly funny or memorable.