Waltons for weirdos

Modern Family. Photo / Supplied

Modern Family got a score of 86 at Metacritic, a website which compiles all of a show's reviews. Even smash-hit Glee managed only 77. US Critics said Modern Family was the season's best new comedy (San Francisco Chronicle), the finest cast with the sharpest material (Chicago Tribune) and the funniest sitcom of the season (Time). This was all true. But it's not the reason I fell so feverishly in love with this new show debuting tonight. I just love Modern Family because it makes my own rackety, unconventional family seem so deliciously normal. I feel among friends.

Modern Family stings, but pleasantly so - its sentimentality meter is set about the same place as The Simpsons. That is, we're all freaks, so suck it up.

Families are endlessly dysfunctional but occasionally they will surprise you. For a moment everyone will unexpectedly put aside their hang-ups and anxieties and shock you with their noble blood-thicker-than-water side. Modern Family shows those moments are all the sweeter for acknowledging the rest of the time families bicker like monkeys.

Some basic facts before I carry on raving about why Modern Family is my favouritest new show. It is a mockumentary about an extended family. The father, Jay Pritchett (Ed O'Neill, from Married With Children), is married to a much younger hot Hispanic woman and is raising an 11-year-old stepson.

Meanwhile, Jay's grown-up daughter Claire (Julie Bowen, from Boston Legal) is a traditional homemaker raising three kids with her self-confessed "cool dad" hubby Phil (Ty Burrell). Jay's son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) is gay and he and his partner have just adopted a Vietnamese baby. The script has the kind of zippidydoodah lines you would expect from the writers of Frasier. Fifteen-year-old Haley to her mother: "Mom, why are you yelling at us when we are just upstairs? You could just text me." Jay to his lovesick 11 year-old stepson Manny: "Not to be the evil stepdad, but if you put on a puffy white shirt and declare your love for a 16-year-old you're going to be swinging from the flagpole in your puffy white underpants. Oh Jeez, he's picking flowers."

The gay characters could seem caricatured, but are a delight. Mitchell, on seeing a mural his partner Cameron has had painted in the nursery of their adopted baby: "Is that us with wings? [To his baby] Oh, don't worry, we tore you away from everything you know but ... everything is normal here: your fathers are floating fairies." The moment where Cameron, in a kimono, presents the couple's new baby to the Circle of Life music from The Lion King is comic gold. Jay's response: "She's one of us now. Let's see the pot sticker."

Needless to say, Manny's crush on an older photo-booth girl is unrequited. "I gave her my heart, she gave me a picture of me as an old-time sheriff," he laments.

I gave my heart to Modern Family. It made me like mine. For half an hour, anyway.

* Modern Family debuts tonight on TV3 at 8pm.