it was originally a well done hybrid of traditional sitcom and the new documentary-style sitcom with slight twists on old character tropes that was acted and written well, and enjoyable

but past the first season the writers got extremely lazy. characters have gotten exceedingly one dimensional. it's formulaic and now rests on all those sitcom tropes it used to lovingly lampoon or twist. i get especially angry at how claire dunphy is treated and written. i love her and she's often disserviced by the scripts and plots.

there's also the notion that it's a show about modern families and none of the women work. all three families are essentially single breadwinner households, which isn't very modern at all. &insert long diatribe about claire dunphy here.