Review: 'Mid-Century Modern' a Gay 'Golden Girls,' But Also a Valentine to a Golden Age of Sitcoms

Max Mutchnick and David Kohan – the creators of "Will & Grace" – re-team for Hulu's new multi-camera sitcom, "Mid-Century Modern," a show that's being touted as a gay "Golden Girls."

The comparison isn't inapt. Nathan Lane stars as Bunny Schneiderman, a middle-aged gay man living with his mother, Sybil (Linda Lavin), in Palm Springs, California. The death of an old friend brings two other longtime pals to the titular house: Jerry Frank (Matt Bomer) is a delectable-but-dim himbo who works as a flight attendant and has hookups with enviable ease. Arthur Broussard (Nathan Lee Graham) was once a "somebody" in the fashion world, but now he's as forgotten as yesterday's (not yet vintage) cuts – which only sharpens his own cutting tongue.

The three friends are at that stage in life when it's funerals (rather than births or weddings or wild weekend getaways) that bring people together. In a moment of enthusiasm, Bunny invites Jerry and Arthur to move in and form a family unit with whom he can face encroaching age.

The fourth inhabitant of the house, Sybil, faces her own age-related demons as her friends slip into dementia or pass away. Linda Lavin's death in the midst of the show's production lends extra poignancy to scenes in which she's confronted with reminders of mortality.

There's a fifth regular – or semi-regular, anyway – in the person of Bunny's tough, acerbic sister, Mindy (Pamela Adlon, a scene-stealer), who breezes in on occasion to refresh the sitcom's familiar tropes and dynamics.

Not that those tropes are unwelcome. Consciously designed to evoke sitcoms of yesteryear, "Mid-Century Modern" features storylines, episodic plots, and one-liners that echo the style of classics like "Maude" and, yes, "Golden Girls."

But this is also a show of its times, and it's unapologetically queer. "Will & Grace" may have played it all too safe, but here we have a show that speaks directly to a gay audience in its own language (the characters call each other "queen" constantly) and addresses our concerns, from legislative bullying and malicious stereotypes to romantic complications, dating pitfalls, age and ethnic divides in the queer community, religious rejection, and the notion of chosen versus biological family. (Ryan Murphy, it should be noted, executive produced the show.)

"Mid-Century Modern" also refuses to shy away from the specific joys, and challenges, of queer sexuality. To the show's credit, Lavin's Sybil, while critical of her offsprings, is never anything but accepting and supportive of her gay son and his friends when it comes to their sexual orientations.

It's hard to say how a second season would play out in the absence of Linda Lavin, but live for the moment and tune in when all 10 first-season episodes of "Mid-Century Modern" premiere on Hulu on March 28.