3 ABC shows' storylines have evolved

PASADENA, Calif. — ABC did the nearly impossible this season. It launched three comedy hits on Wednesday nights — "The Middle," "Modern Family" and "Cougar Town."

They're all big enough hits that they've all already been renewed for next season.

But the weird part is that none of the shows are exactly what they started out to be.

"Modern Family" has a faux documentary style to it. At various points in each episode, the characters speak directly into the camera, answering unheard questions from an unseen documentary filmmaker of some sort.

As originally conceived, that documentarian would have been both seen and heard — a "Deutsche documentary filmmaker named Geert Floorjte," according to executive producer Steve Levitan. And, as originally written, viewers would have learned that, as a teenager, Geert was an exchange student who lived with the "Family."

"He had a major crush on Claire (Julie Bowen) as a kid, and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) had a major crush on him as a kid," Levitan said. "And so he was going to come back and be part of it.

"But we wrote that in the first draft, Chris Lloyd and I, and it just sort of felt like an appendage. Like we didn't need it."

According to Levitan, the writers have ongoing conversations about whether the show is a "true documentary" or a "family show done documentary style."

"I prefer the latter, because I don't like those families who let cameras in their houses in real life. I just can't stand those shows," he said. "It would make me question ('Family' members) a little bit. Who would allow all of this to be filmed by a crew? I like the idea that it's just our style of storytelling."

As for "Cougar Town," it was originally conceived as a show about a 40-ish woman (Courteney Cox) who was re-entering the dating world after spending half of her life married to a goofy, ne'er-do-well, philandering husband. And it has morphed into something that — unintentionally — is more compatible with both "The Middle" and "Modern Family" than anyone intended.

"I think our show evolved into a dysfunctional family show from what, in its initial conception, was a show about a woman out pursuing romance as a newly single woman in her 40s," executive producer Bill Lawrence said. "And I think it happened because creatively it worked better, and it happened because I was impressed by what (the other shows' producers) were doing."