'The Middle' is apt portrayal of everyday family

It's not the most popular sitcom on the air, and it didn't win any Emmys last Sunday. Heck, it wasn't even nominated. But for my wife and me, "The Middle" is the funniest, most truthful show on television.

Our own children are grown and gone now, and most of them have children of their own. But when we watch "The Middle," we see something of ourselves and our kids (and grandkids) every single week.

We identify with many of the quirky character traits and each episode's varied situations, which are often built around the compromises families have to make when money is tight and schedules are way too hectic.

For the uninitiated, "The Middle" is about struggling Middle America. What could be more timely than that?

The focus is on a harried wife and husband and their three kids, all trying to make things work even when the world seems to be conspiring against them.

Consider this show an antidote to the "O.C."/"Dawson's Creek"/"Gossip Girl" TV families that depict parents having affairs and kids who are rich, popular, beautiful and excelling in classwork and sports.

That's not the Hecks. They're just getting by, a blue-collar family living in a depressed Indiana town.

Frankie Heck (Patricia Heaton), who narrates each show, is the mom. She tries to put her family first but is often pushed beyond her limits by the pressures of everyday life, to include the car lot where she is the lowest-ranking sales person during a time when car sales are at an all-time low.

Her husband Mike (Neil Flynn) works at the local quarry, loves sports and is blunt to a fault. He loves his wife and kids though he's not always crazy about a lot of the things that go along with family life. But when push comes to shove he comes through.

The teens are surly Axl (Charlie McDermott), who lounges around in his boxers all day and sighs and whines when asked to do the slightest thing, and Sue (Eden Sher), an improbably upbeat loser who fails spectacularly at everything she tries, but who keeps trying new things all the same. And the youngest is Brick (Atticus Shaffer), who just wants to read and doesn't care that he has no social skills.

Heaton, who co-starred in "Everybody Loves Raymond," is perfect as a different kind of harried mom from Debra Barone, and Flynn, who played the janitor on "Scrubs," is an equally perfect foil. And best of all, the kids here seem like real kids, not smart-mouthed sitcom caricatures.