Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair premieres Thursday on Hulu with all four revival episodes available at once. [1] As this paper covered in yesterday's edition, the core cast returns together for the first time since the original series ended in 2006 — Frankie Muniz as Malcolm, Bryan Cranston as Hal, Jane Kaczmarek as Lois, and Christopher Masterson as Francis.

The revival's premise is direct: Malcolm has spent more than a decade keeping his family at a distance. The family pulls him back. Four episodes. All available Thursday. [2] The limited format is the right call. The original ran seven seasons on Fox and carved a generational identity for audiences who grew up in households where love and chaos were indistinguishable. Four episodes of reunion is enough to honor that without exhausting it.

The complication is Cranston. Breaking Bad ran from 2008 to 2013. Anyone who watched it cannot separate the actor from Walter White. Hal was comedically oblivious — a father who meant well and failed productively. Cranston now carries the shadow of a character who meant harm and failed catastrophically. Whether that shadow falls on the revival or whether Muniz's presence reasserts the original show's emotional logic is what Thursday's first episode will determine.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles