"Malcolm in the Middle" isn't the show it once was. Which is inevitable, given that it hits the 100-episode mark on Sunday (8 p.m., Ch. 13) and because three of the show's six stars were a lot shorter 100 episodes ago.
And a lot younger, which tends to happen when you center a show on kids.
When the "Malcolm" pilot was produced, Frankie Muniz (Malcolm) and Justin Berfield (Reese) were both 13 and Erik Per Sullivan (Dewey) was 8. They're now 18, 17 and 12, respectively.
Creator/executive producer Linwood Boomer made good on his promise to deal with the boys' growth "naturally. The same way you talk to your kids differently as they get older and you relate to them differently."
"That's just life. We'll deal with it in the show the way you deal with it in life, which is you're just kind of horrified at how fast it happens."
It's been a pretty big change. But only one of many the show has undergone as both "Malcolm" and the boys got older.
At the center of "Malcolm in the Middle" when it premiered on Jan. 9, 2000, was Malcolm himself — a genius child (with an IQ of 165) who was surrounded by this loud, boisterous, basically normal family who didn't know quite what to make of him. And he was constantly embarrassed by them.
As the show progressed, the Malcolm-is-a-genius plots pretty much went away. Oh, he's still the smartest member of the family (which still has no last name), but it's not a big deal most of the time.
And the focus has shifted to the parents. Which wasn't a bad choice, given that Jane Kaczmarek (who plays Lois) and Bryan Cranston (Hal) are two of the best comedic actors working in TV today. It's a crime that neither of them has won an Emmy (although Kaczmarek has been nominated four times and Cranston twice).
Kaczmarek takes center stage in Sunday's 100th episode. Laurie Metcalf ("Roseanne") is perfectly cast as Lois' younger sister, Susan. And it isn't long before the screaming begins, because, as it turns out, Hal was Susan's boyfriend before he and Lois hooked up.
While Susan seems determined to drive Lois crazy by giving the boys extravagant gifts — very funny plotlines for Malcolm, Reese and Dewey — the main story takes a turn when Lois learns that Susan needs a kidney transplant. And only Lois could turn something like that into a battle for control.
And Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson), still working on that dude ranch, has an alarming encounter with a troop of preteen Girl Scouts.
(Masterson, by the way, was 19 when the show debuted but playing younger. Although the show has never specified any of the ages of any of the characters, Francis was in high school, and now he's a married man.)
When "Malcolm" premiered four years ago, yours truly wrote that it was "television magic." It's not exactly the same show, and viewers may have gotten used to it, but there's still magic there. It can still make you laugh.
Heck, just keeping the plot device of having one of the major characters — Francis — only rarely directly interact with the other regulars is, if not magic, certainly an amazing achievement.
"Malcolm in the Middle" can be loud and shrill at times. And it's become, if anything, more offbeat and, oddly enough, more subtle at the same time.
This is a show that's going to live on in reruns forever.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com