David Bianculli

Linwood Boomer, who co-created the original Malcolm in the Middle sitcom way back in the year 2000, is back for the reunion.

So is almost all the original cast, in a four-episode plot that has Hal and Lois, the parents of this very dysfunctional family, struggling to mount a 40th wedding anniversary party.

When the original Malcolm in the Middle premiered, Frankie Munez, who played Frankie, spoke directly to the TV audience about his anxieties growing up in this particular household.

The series' sequel, with its Life Still Unfair subtitle, a shout-out to the original show's theme song, picks up right where the seven-season sitcom ended, with Malcolm still confiding directly to the audience.

All I had to do is stay completely away from my family.

Thank goodness he doesn't maintain that level of separation.

Because Malcolm's parents, Hal and Lois, are the best thing about any iteration of Malcolm in the Middle.

Lois is played with exasperated patience by the wonderful Jane Kaczmarek.

And Hal, her goofy man-child of a husband, is played by Bryan Cranston.

He played this cartoonish live-action Homer Simpson hilariously for years, then took a hard turn to play Walter White, the science teacher turned drug-dealing murderer in the drama series Breaking Bad.

But he never lost his sense of humor or how to play Hal's character.

When Breaking Bad ended, he and Kaczmarek filmed a playful scene just for fun and for YouTube that was a callback to the famous ending of the TV sitcom Newhart.

Remember, at the very end of that series, Bob Newhart woke up in bed in his old bedroom with his old TV wife Emily, played by Suzanne Plachette from The Bob Newhart Show.

he tried to describe his entire New Heart series tour as a bad dream.

And after Breaking Bad ended, Bryan Cranston, waking up as Hal in bed next to his former TV wife, had a similar experience.

You cooking anything?

In Malcolm in the Middle, Life Still Unfair, the comic chemistry remains, though times have changed.

Lois still shaves Hal's body hair at the breakfast table, shearing them like a sheep, but now Hal's hair is white.

And at the table on this particular morning is a member of the family who is new to us, Kelly, a teenager who identifies in a way that Hal struggles to understand, at least in how to address her.

We're going to go shopping later.