Malcolm gets called out by EVERYONE of the main characters and major side characters at one point or another in the series for his crappy attitude… It’s a running joke by the end of it…
This is one of those fox “see! the poor don’t have to be poor, they just need gumption and having less kids” shows… (Bones is another ex.)
Malcolm’s always whining and it causes him to lose out on many major opportunities (both relationship-wise and career-wise)
Hal says they have sex several times a day, even when they’re camping with another family. Thus he’s always tired and can’t concentrate
In one episode, Lois and Hal have to stop having sex for a week because of some medical issues, the grass gets attention and turns green, hal gets a promotion, and they stop being so trashy. All in one week. Once the issue is gone and they can have sex, everything goes back the way it was, grass looks like shit, house is a wreck.
In one episode they show how each time they have a kid, the parents lives get progressively worse.
One of the running themes on the show is basically “work sucks but there’s nothing you can do about it”.
There’s an episode where Francis has to work at Lois’ job to help with inventory and Craig is in charge and is being extra incompetent. You’d figure with all of the opposition Francis organizes at military school that he’d be able to easily handle Craig and start a union or something. Instead, when everyone else decides to just give up and go home after they lose the competition to get it done before another store in the area, Francis is fighting to get everyone to finish what they started.
I don’t think any of the times when the show has a “character vs their employer” conflict works out in a way where the character wins. The closest I can think of is when Lois has a conflict with a manager that fired her wrongly, but even that one isn’t resolved in a great way because his downfall comes from Lois telling him she has dirt on him but would never tell anyone about it and the rest of the staff overhears and does tell. So it’s got a bit of “Lois is good because she keeps her boss’ secrets” mixed in with the messaging.
It sucks because it’s otherwise such a well made show. Every character on the show sucks for some reason, but it doesn’t just let them get away with it. Unless it’s an employer or cop, at which point the message pivots to “it sucks but there’s nothing anyone can do about it other than bitch”.
Few things for the family
One of the running themes on the show is basically “work sucks but there’s nothing you can do about it”.
There’s an episode where Francis has to work at Lois’ job to help with inventory and Craig is in charge and is being extra incompetent. You’d figure with all of the opposition Francis organizes at military school that he’d be able to easily handle Craig and start a union or something. Instead, when everyone else decides to just give up and go home after they lose the competition to get it done before another store in the area, Francis is fighting to get everyone to finish what they started.
I don’t think any of the times when the show has a “character vs their employer” conflict works out in a way where the character wins. The closest I can think of is when Lois has a conflict with a manager that fired her wrongly, but even that one isn’t resolved in a great way because his downfall comes from Lois telling him she has dirt on him but would never tell anyone about it and the rest of the staff overhears and does tell. So it’s got a bit of “Lois is good because she keeps her boss’ secrets” mixed in with the messaging.
It sucks because it’s otherwise such a well made show. Every character on the show sucks for some reason, but it doesn’t just let them get away with it. Unless it’s an employer or cop, at which point the message pivots to “it sucks but there’s nothing anyone can do about it other than bitch”.