Why ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ Is Only Four Episodes (And Why It Almost Stayed Dead) [Exclusive]

Life's Still Unfair gets (most) of the band back together with Chris Kennedy Masterson as Francis, Justin Berfield as Reese, and Emy Coligado as Piama, and introduces Vaughan Murrae as Malcolm’s youngest sibling, Kelly, Kiana Madeira as Tristan, Malcolm’s girlfriend, and Caleb Ellsworth-Clark as Dewey.

Check out the full conversation in the transcript below, where Boomer discusses the true-to-Hal challenge the writers' room took on for Cranston, how the original series was able to establish such an outlandish family dynamic and get away with so many colorful hijinks, as well as his thoughts on returning for more after Life's Still Unfair Season 1. Plus, the creator looks back on his time on Voyagers! and Little House on the Prairie, and shares his feelings on Netflix's reboot series.

'Malcolm in the Middle' Was a Little Chaos and Timing and a Whole Lot of Luck

Linwood and Katsky explain how the show got away with so much when it first aired.

I watched all four episodes. Thank you for making me laugh. On the original Malcolm in the Middle, you do some crazy stuff on the original show. Did the network ever say to you, “This is actually going too far?”

BOOMER: No, but I'll tell you why. It was a very crazy set of coincidences. There were 20 different things that had to happen that could have gone the other way, and would have changed everything. One was that we had the script written and it was at Paramount, and they didn't want to do it, and we asked them to let it go and let us pitch it somewhere else, and they said yes, which they did not have to do. We pitched it to Doug Herzog, who was brand new at running the Fox network.

KATSKY: During pilot season.

BOOMER: Yeah. He had just come from Comedy Central, and he wasn't used to the idea of the network giving a bunch of input and doing this stuff. He just liked the script and said, “Let's shoot it.”

KATSKY: He’d been there like a week.

BOOMER: Me and Gail Berman went, “Uh, okay.” We were used to them saying, “If you change this and you change this and you change this and give it to us, we'll think about it for three weeks, and maybe we'll do it, or maybe we'll tell you how else to change it.” That was the normal thing to do.

So, we got to shoot it. We shot it, and it was single-camera, and so they weren't used to that at all. So the normal mechanism by which you do a table read and then the executives tell you what they don't like, and then you do a rehearsal two days later after you do a big rewrite, and they tell you the new things they don't like, and then you go through that iterative process. They would call us and say, “When's the table read?” And we’d say, “We shot that episode last week. There is no table read. We don't have time to do a table read. We're shooting it.” And they’d call with, “This scene in the last episode, I know you're shooting, but this is the last episode, isn’t it?” “Yeah, but we don't shoot them in order. We shot that two days ago.” So, for a lot of that, we got to accidentally make.

We were picked up as a midseason show, so they had other shows that they were worried about. We shot through November, and it wasn't until November when their other shows hadn't quite worked out, so they had enough bandwidth to give us full attention, and we had already shot everything. The network was in trouble, so we were kind of the only hope they had, so they gave us a boatload of promotion. They forced it to be a giant success, and then it was a big success. It stayed successful through those 12 episodes, so then they figured, “Well, okay, I guess they know what they're doing.” That was the reason we were able to do kind of anything we wanted. I'd love to say it was because I was such a genius that they recognized that, but it was a complete coincidence.

I would actually say that you can promote anything, but if the quality isn't there, people are not going to continue tuning in.

BOOMER: Fair enough. But also, you can have something good and promote it, and it sometimes doesn't work.

100%.

BOOMER: I don't think anyone should downplay the element of luck in the success.

KATSKY: Then what happened was his studio execs, very small, brand new studio of New Regency, when Doug Herzog left that job a couple of months later, they hired the head of New Regency, Gail Berman, who had been the studio president, as the president of the network, and they hired me as the head of comedy. So, suddenly, we were the big bad network executives, and we had all been in the trenches together for the pilot and the first bunch of episodes.

BOOMER: So we all trusted each other.

KATSKY: Yeah, it wasn't like this contentious bunch of strangers doing this. So continuing on, the deck was a little bit stacked.

BOOMER: That was a big part of the difficulty of getting the new one. I had no good ideas because I'd had basically seven years of saying everything I wanted to say, kind of uninterrupted. It would be like if you went to a cocktail party and everyone was just rapt and hanging on your every word. I don't know about you, but I could do that for maybe 45 minutes before I just run out of things to say that were interesting, and I did. I had run out of ideas. When Bryan [Cranston] was saying we should do a revival, I said, “Well, I don't have any good ideas for it.” It took years and years before I recharged the tank.

Bryan Cranston (Still) Has Zero Limits

"I wonder what he wouldn't do."

I read that Bryan, and I could be wrong, was actually writing a script or coming up with his own ideas. Did any of his ideas actually make it into the four episodes?

BOOMER: Absolutely not. Not a single thing! I certainly am not taking credit for some of his ideas and saying they were mine all along. Why would you even suggest that? Yes, of course. Thousands. Here's the thing: Bryan comes up with thousands of ideas, and a lot of them hit. A lot of them are great, and I will take good ideas from anything.

The idea that actually got me writing it was Tracy's, which was, what if Malcolm had a daughter who was exactly like him? That really sparked a lot of other ideas, like, you know what? That would be terrible for that girl, because a girl with those genetics is going to be way more unhappy than another boy with those genetics, and Malcolm as a father, knowing that this kid's unhappy and it's his fault, and there's nothing you can do about it. It’s like, “Okay, that’s funny. Just let me come up with a good framework for it.”

One of the things about the original Malcolm is that Bryan Cranston was amazing on the show, fearless, and willing to do anything. I was wondering, “What is he going to be like on the new version?” And right from Episode 1, right at the beginning, he's naked again. How often is he saying, “I should just be naked,” and how much is it in the script? Because he is fearless.

BOOMER: At the very beginning of the show, after two episodes, we were like, “Bryan is so goddamn game.” The writers started, not really seriously, going, “I wonder what he wouldn't do.” Somebody said, “I saw this thing where this guy was covered in 10,000 bees. I bet he wouldn't do that,” and we’re going, “Goddamn, that would be amazing.” So, we just asked him, “What if we could concoct a reason to have you covered with 10,000 bees?” And he was like, “That sounds cool.” We’re like, “Okay, well, we'll get back to you,” and we found something to do. That became a thing that was sort of a creative inspiration — could we get something that Bryan wouldn't agree to do? And we never did.

Originally, I heard it was going to be a two-hour movie, and now it's four episodes. But for all intents and purposes, it's a two-hour movie, just divided up into four segments. Why was it so important to break it up like that? Is it people's attention span?

BOOMER: No, it's a personality flaw of mine. I originally pitched it as a movie, and the studio said, “Listen, I don't know if we can sell it as a movie. We love this. We want to do it, but I think it's got to be episodes.” I was like, “It works like a movie.” They said, “Can you please just change it so that it's episodes?” I was like, “Okay, breaking it up into three episodes would work.” They said, “No, we got to have like…”

KATSKY: Six. It’s got to be a minimum of six episodes.

BOOMER: “Otherwise, they won't want to do it.” I was like, “No, but I think I have other stuff that I didn't put in there that would make four decent episodes.” They went, “Oh, okay. Let's try that.” So I spent like two or three months just working it into four decent episodes, and then I said, “Here you go.”

Writing is not easy for me. I really work on this. I really sweat all this stuff out. So, it'd been two months of me really going at it and getting it to where I wanted it to be. Then I turned it in, and they said, “God, these are great. You know what? I think they might want a movie after all.” And I was like, “You know what? Too bad.” It wasn't a tantrum, but I did sort of fold my arms and just say no, like, “This works. I have too much money to just keep doing this on spec.”

Also, it is a two-hour movie for all intents and purposes, just divided up. If they really wanted to, they could have just removed the beginnings and connected all four and made a movie. But it worked. I actually preferred it as four episodes because I watched two, took a break, and I watched the other two. It was great.

BOOMER: I also really liked the joke of Frankie [Muniz] running off forever and forever, and then the end credits rolling is just funnier than him running off, and then you cut to the other scene where he finishes running. It just worked funnier.

Listen, I got some bad news for you. It's really funny. I'm very confident that as people watch this, who grew up with Malcolm, they're going to want more than this. If you made more episodes, I would continue watching.

Will There Be More 'Malcolm in the Middle'?

Boomer says it all depends on the numbers.

Everyone at Hulu must be over the moon about this because they're really funny episodes. Have you already thought about, “Can we do more?” Have you been asked that? I'm saying this as a fan, and I know you’ll be asked this.

BOOMER: Well, it depends on how it does. There's a certain number, and I don't even know what it is, and I don't even know what it's measuring, but some piece of data has to hit a certain number, and if it's one shy, they won't ask, and if it's one over, they will ask, but not until then.

We all had a great time. Everyone had a great time. It was a really good working experience, which I was nervous about after having been retired for so long and happily out of the business. Disney and 20th were terrific. They were great to work with.

KATSKY: There are no conversations about it at all. We're not talking about it.

Totally. By the way, they don't want to jinx it, but after it drops, the buzz is going to be good.

BOOMER: Well, there are 150 other ones to watch if they haven't already done that. Part of the difficulty of making the first one was Bryan has this fabulous movie career and Broadway-starring things he's got to do. He has to light up Broadway twice a year now. He's only got, like, six Tony Awards, and he needs another seven or eight Tony Awards and Oscar nominations. Frankie's got, like, 20 different businesses, in addition to the car racing. It’s a question of people being available to do it. It was difficult for this one with people who really wanted to do it, and all love each other and love working together.

This OG 'Little House on the Prairie' Star Is "All For" Netflix's Reboot

Linwood Boomer played Adam Kendall in the original series.

COLLIDER: What are your thoughts on Netflix rebooting Little House on the Prairie?

LINWOOD BOOMER: I'm all for it. I'll tell you one thing that was great was this kid we had that we hired in the show to play the Krelboyne’s created kid, Hubert, was so good in our thing that he told me, “I'm going to audition for Little House,” and I just said, “Call that producer. I'm going to tell him how great this kid is.” And apparently, they got the job?

TRACY KATSKY: I think they got it.

BOOMER: Yeah, they got a job on it. I just thought he was amazing.

KATSKY: Do you have any feelings about the reboot, though?

BOOMER: Yeah, I think it's awesome.

I mean, it already has a second season pickup. They must be very confident.

BOOMER: I know the world of it is completely different. It's much closer to the books. Michael Landon just had that thing of that family and then just ran with it, and it was a great thing for what it was, but it wasn't what the books were, which was a little bit grimmer of a life. To me, I think it's much more appropriate now because I think people understand that vocabulary, that things can sort of be grim and really tough, and you can still have that loving family in that situation, and it still works.

I also think Michael had to deal with 22 episodes a season, and Netflix is going to be six or eight, so it's a completely different world.

BOOMER: Yeah, and that was back when an hour show had to do, like, 55 minutes.

It's a different world. It was a huge hit. He made it work.

BOOMER: By the way, they did 26, and I think for a while they were doing 28.

KATSKY: A year?

BOOMER: Yeah.

Again, this is why you can't do the books. You need to expand the characters. It's a different show.

So this is one for me. When I was a kid, I watched Voyagers!, which I think you did.

BOOMER: I did Voyagers!

What do you remember about doing that show? Because it was one season, 20 episodes, but I saw it as a kid and on reruns, and I always had an affinity for it.

BOOMER: Yeah, I loved the idea, and I like Jon [Erik Hexum] and Meeno [Peluce]. You met Meeno, right?

KATSKY: I know Meeno because I know Soleil [Moon Frye] from everything, and Soleil’s brother.

BOOMER: We have two separate connections to Meeno.

KATSKY: I don’t know if you know Soleil Moon Frye, who is Punky Brewster, is actually Meeno’s sibling.

I did not know that, actually.

KATSKY: They’re brother and sister. So, I knew Soleil from other work.

BOOMER: Yeah, I love those guys. It was so sad. The thing that bothered me with Jon is that's totally something I would have done, just clowning around. He was a great, nice guy. He was clowning around, and maybe the prop guys knew, but it wasn't a thing. It was just so sad and pointless. That stayed with me a long time because I totally could see myself trying to be funny and doing that, like, “This is gonna fucking make them laugh,” and then boom.

But the show was great. They were great. The role, I remember it was nice because it was well-run. I was very nervous because Little House was run so tightly, and it was such a pleasant, easy experience. Everything got done really fast, and everything got done perfectly, and everything was done in one or two takes because everyone had to know what they were doing. A lot of shows weren’t like that, and I was kind of nervous going on another show, like, “Is this going to be miserable? Am I going to be here until four in the morning saying the same sentence over and over?” And it wasn't. It was run nice and tight, too. So, I really appreciated that.

It was also the precursor to Quantum Leap, which is another show I loved.

KATSKY: The best!

All four episodes of Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair will be available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ on April 10, so keep an eye out for our spoiler conversation!