This feels like a pretty weird time to be worrying about a TV show ending. But, whatever. Here we are.
After 11 years and 250 episodes on the air, Modern Family is wrapping up Wednesday night. Initially, I wanted to write a big, long retrospective about Modern Family’s staying power and all the awards it won despite never actually being all that innovative or influential. But now doesn’t feel like the time. No one wants to spend their quarantine lockdown reading about all the times Modern Family won awards that Community or Parks and Recreation or Girls or Louie should’ve won instead.
Rather, let’s lean into the times and talk a little bit about video calls.
Zoom and Google Hangouts are having their moment right now. Desperate for human interaction, people all over the country are video calling their friends and relatives from the lockdown safety of their own homes. Which is cool, I guess. I’m mostly neutral on video chatting as a concept. It’s effective for group calls and meetings, but I find it mostly unnecessary for one-on-one communication.
That said, there’s a bizarre symmetry to the fact that Modern Family is ending in the middle of what I’ll heretofore refer to as The Zoom Moment™. Because there’s an argument to be made that Modern Family’s defining episode took place entirely over video chat. And going back and rewatching it now feels like an interesting entry point into discussing the world we’re stuck in.
The highest-rated Modern Family episode according to IMDb user ratings is Season 6’s Connection Lost. It’s sitting at 9.5 stars out of 10 with more than 5,000 reviews. There are only six other episodes of Modern Family with more than 2,000 reviews, and only two other episodes (again, out of 250) with a rating of 9.0 or better.
Still, I’m trying hard not to call Connection Lost the defining episode of Modern Family. Because it’s so unlike every other episode of the show. Modern Family is a pretty rigidly formatted show. It uses its mockumentary style well and the way the show is directed is very distinctively Modern Family with its sleekness and quick pacing and projection of opulence.
Connection Lost doesn’t really do any of that. The episode isn’t shot like a documentary. It’s shot entirely like the viewer is watching a stream of someone’s laptop background. The whole episode exists on Claire’s Macbook, with other characters popping up through FaceTime calls, pre-recorded videos and social media feeds.
The episode works because of how it’s paced. It’s one of the few Modern Family episodes that feels like it was made to be watched on Netflix instead of ABC. Everything moves fast and every event flows into one another. Essentially, it’s a bottle episode occurring in real-time. Except instead of following the rules of episodes like Seinfeld’s “The Chinese Restaurant” or Friends’ “The One Where No One’s Ready,” Modern Family circumvented the rules by filming an episode across multiple sets while preserving the frenetic, naturalistic speed of a bottle episode.
(Probably not coincidentally, one of the two writers of the episode was Megan Ganz, who wrote the Community bottle episode Cooperative Calligraphy. Which, by the way, is my favorite episode of Community.)
Connection Lost is a marvel of an episode. Staging, shooting and editing half an hour of a network sitcom on iPhones and iPads in 2020 would still be a bit of a challenge. But doing so in 2015? At the time, series co-creator and episode co-writer and director Steven Levitan told SlashGear that it was the most labor-intensive episode of Modern Family they’d ever made. By that point, Modern Family had already made an episode on-location in Australia.
The fact that the episode worked is impressive enough. But the way Ganz and Levitan wove an episode with no fewer than six plots intertwining while restricting themselves to one visual location deserves more praise than I can give. If the episode had only rode the momentum of the Claire-Hailey plot with a couple of throwaway jokes from Jay and Phil, it still would’ve been technically impressive. But throwing in bits about Mitchell’s new hat and Cam’s love of Chicagoan popcorn and Alex’s college essay and Luke’s mohawk that continue to pay off throughout the show elevated the episode from a daring format to an intricately-constructed tightrope act.
But let’s talk about the inadvertent subtext. Now more than ever, we need lessons on proper video chat etiquette. (Yes, I learn all my lessons from sitcoms leave me alone.) So here are six lessons I learned about video chatting from Connection Lost.
1. It’s OK to multitask
Don’t feel obligated to have eyes on the other people on the call at all times. Claire doesn’t. If you’re bored listening to someone talk about how they’re staying busy during a shelter-in-place (spoiler alert: it’s the same way all of us are), don’t feel bad about clicking over to Twitter or Facebook or checking the news for a quick sec.
You can listen and scroll at the same time. No one will judge you. Even if you, like Claire, start looking at porn during the call. As long as you, like Claire, consider Pinterest to be porn.
2. Pay attention to perspective
C’mon people. Frame yourself in the shot the right way. Don’t be like Jay. Don’t be too close to the camera or too far away from it. You don’t have to talk louder than you normally would. Nothing has to change. Just treat it like a regular conversation.
(Fun fact: In a Paley Center discussion about the episode, the actors said the framing of Connection Lost was achieved by a trained camera operator holding the phone or iPad in front of the actor and then the actor holding that person’s wrist to make it look like they’re holding the device themselves. Hollywood magic!)
3. Know who is on the call
When you’re on a Zoom chat with 20 other people, it’s easy to not take role of everyone listening. But make sure you have a clock on everybody on the call. Don’t get caught in a tough situation like Phil where you accidentally get caught lying in the background of a call. Or worse, don’t end up like Jay and accidentally say something sincere and sentimental while the subject of your sincerity is listening.
Once someone finds out you’re actually nice, you can’t take it back.
4. Be considerate
The one thing that really bothers me about Connection Lost is it’s evident that Claire isn’t using headphones. She’s in an airport and she’s video chatting for 20 minutes straight, letting the whole world know her family’s business. Don’t be that person.
Of course, you shouldn’t be in an airport at all right now. But if you are in a house with other people, use headphones. No one should have to listen to your family business right now. Because again, I don’t mean to reiterate this too many times but, you’re not special because you’re figuring out ways to stay healthy and keep entertained during quarantine. We are literally all doing the same thing.
If someone doesn’t want to be hearing your conversations, don’t make them.
5. Side chats are encouraged
Sure, it’s great to be on a group call. It’s awesome to catch up with large groups of friends you haven’t seen in a while. But if you have the ability to talk trash about someone on the call behind their back, go for it.
Claire and Mitchell weren’t afraid to text each other to talk about Cam while Cam was listening. You shouldn’t be either. If you have a friend or family member who’s boring you with yet another story about the Wal-Mart being out of ground beef, vent about it. Technology is great like that.
6. Know when to hide
Phil and Luke should’ve heeded this advice. Being seen isn’t always a good thing. If you’re not paying attention on a family call or if you’re not decently dressed on a work call, don’t be afraid to pop that camera off and just be an audio feed for a few seconds.
Go ahead and blame your connection if you need to. No one will be mad if you turn off your camera and run to the kitchen for a minute. Or mute your microphone to play a game with sound on.
Being seen is great. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of watching Monty Python, knowing how not to be seen is an even more valuable skill.
The Sitcomologist 