The third season of Modern Family allows us to once again catch up with the various family members. Fed up with speeders going through a local intersection, Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) petitions to get a stop sign installed.  When this is denied, she decides to run for town council. Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) should be devoting his time to his real estate agency, but he's too busy getting involved in goofy schemes with his son, Luke (Nolan Gould). Haley Dunphy (Sarah Hyland) is a senior in high school, and as she's never taken school seriously, she wonders if she'll get into college. She's also continued her on-again/off-again relationship with Dylan (Reid Ewing). Alex Dunphy (Ariel Winter) has just entered high school, and she wonders if she should socialize more. Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) are going ahead with their plan to adopt a baby boy. However, their adopted daughter Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) isn't crazy about the idea. Jay Pritchett (Ed O'Neill) continues to understand what his wife, Gloria (Sofia Vergara), says and does, while trying to get his step-son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez) to act more masculine.

As noted above, the writers of Modern Family have decided to stretch their creative muscles this season and create some story arcs. While every episode still has its self-contained stories, plotlines like Claire's run for town council and Cameron and Mitchell's quest to adopt are touched on throughout the season. We also go back to things like Haley's attempts to get into college. This helps to add a bit of substance to what was already a very funny show. The one major knock against Modern Family is that despite the fact that it wants to present how American families look in the 21st century, it's often unrealistic. (See my review for Season 1 for my rant on that.) Having stories continue from one episode to the next shows that, just like in real life, things aren't always wrapped up in 22 minutes.

But, enough about continuity and story arcs, Modern Family is still a very funny show. Is it the funniest show on TV? Despite what the Television Academy has said for the past three years, it isn't. But it still gets high marks for deftly blending very clever and often very subtle jokes in with physical comedy. While the show is touted as an ensemble piece, for my money, Ty Burrell as Phil steals the show every week. Overly confident stupid people are always great characters and Burrell has mastered this with Phil -- a man who is successful in his business, but often clueless about real life. The way in which he reacts to Claire's uptight nature is often the lynchpin to the Dunphy storylines, and I love when Phil gets the kids to side with him. Cameron and Mitchell remain funny, but their histrionics is bordering on getting old and they need to find a new comedy outlet. In the end, this is just nitpicking, as the characters and their flaws take a backseat to the show's great writing. Unlike some of my other current favorite comedies (The Big Bang Theory and Parks and Recreation), Modern Family isn't always quotable, but it's consistently funny and we want to tune in each week to see what these families are up to.

Modern Family: The Complete Third Season walks a low high-wire onto Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The three Disc set contains all 24 episodes of the show's third season. The show has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 32 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source materials. The colors look very good and the image is never overly dark or bright. As the show is shot in a sort of documentary style, the image can blur a bit when the camera moves quickly, but this is rare. The image shows a nice amount of detail and the depth is about what we would expect. Overall, this rivals HD broadcast quality. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are nicely done, most notably when they highlight sounds off-screen. The surround sound effects come into play during crowd scenes. I didn't note much in the way of subwoofer effects.

The Modern Family: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Disc set contains a number of extras spread across the three Discs. Disc 1 offers ten DELETED AND ALTERNATE SCENES which run about 6 minutes. "Destination: Wyoming" (10 minutes) is a brief featurette which shows the fun and challenges of moving the production to Wyoming for the season premiere. "A Day on the Set with Ty" (6 minutes) has Phil Dunphy himself taking us behind the scenes to show us what the production is like and to talk to fellow cast members and Director Bryan Cranston. "Adventures of the Modern Family Kids" (4 minutes) offers more footage with the young actors enjoying some downtime in Wyoming. Disc 2 also has a set of thirteen DELETED AND ALTERNATE SCENES which run about 9 minutes. "A Modern Family Christmas" (6 minutes) examines the production of the express Christmas episode with on-set footage and comments from the cast and director. Rico Rodriguez and Nolan Gould borrow a car in "Driving Lessons" (3 minutes). "Ed O'Neill Gets a Star" (17 minutes) takes us to the ceremony to see Jay Pritchett get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Disc 3 kicks off with twelve DELETED AND ALTERNATE SCENES which run about 7 minutes and come from various episodes. "Modern Family Goes to Disneyland Resort" (3 minutes) takes us behind the scenes to see the cast working inside of the amusement park. We get comments from the actors and Steve Levitan. The extras are rounded out by a 9-minute GAG REEL.

Review Copyright 2012 by Mike Long