For me, the marker of a good comedy is the inability to describe it: Actors' phrasing is too exact and their facial expressions too slight to properly replicate their effects. Naturally, that guideline is in no way complete; after all, jokes make a comedy, too. So to find myself excited about a new comedy-a sitcom, no less-is a rare sensation, especially in the current network lineup. This is by no means another variety of "Remember when" or "Isn't it a shame that." After all, we have to deal with the TV Guide that we are dealt. But, just to momentarily indulge in sulking, today's viewer animosity seems somewhat justified. As fledgling Arrested Development left the airwaves, many felt that good television was destined to leave and forever be considered for a movie. However, it finally seems time for the feelings of loss to be put aside-hasn't it been long enough? The Office, 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother took the helm left abandoned by their departed comrade, and adjustment proved easy enough. Granted, viewership for these shows has never been especially high, but fears of cancellation seem more or less gone.

This past week, I tuned into ABC Comedy Wednesdays, which promised to host a night of entertainment. But from the two minutes I caught of its start-the 8 p.m. slot belonging to Kelsey Grammer's new show, Hank-and the two minutes of the end of its second act-Patricia Heaton's The Middle-I realized why I was indeed excited, at least for ABC Comedy Wednesdays' 9 p.m. presentation. Within two minutes, I could grasp from the overzealous laugh track of Hank and the unnecessary voiceover featured in The Middle that these shows were depending on the tropes that mainstream TV comedies had sustained itself with for seasons, delivering jokes with little thought of proper execution and devising plots with no push for a story.

The show I had tuned in for was nothing like the ones that had preceded it. Modern Family, which graces ABC Wednesdays at 9 p.m., strays from the pack precisely because it is a model of the new TV comedy genre, bursting forth in a mockumentary format, sans laugh track and reveling in awkward silences and subtle stares. A description of the show may be conceived by tying two shows of similar variety together (say Arrested Development plus The Office); but with enough maturity, Modern Family could be more than a hybrid. Granted, the pilot pulled more punches than its second episode, but an opening number is generally slated to do worse than what follows, so with such a strong beginning, it makes sense to pull back and leave something for the rest of the season.

The show is centered around three related families who provide commentary on parenting and adulthood. Jay (Ed O'Neil) is the wealthy elder-statesman of the family tree, assuming the role of father to the two other branches while playing husband to young, attractive Latina mother, Gloria (Sofia Vergara). Their age gap is significant, but their language barrier is minimal; even so, the show enjoys capitalizing on the amusing moments a lack of a common native tongue provides. When describing her small, beautiful hometown in Colombia, Gloria turns to her husband to provide the English word with which her birthplace is associated-"Murders," he somberly says as she continues smiling. The concept-even the joke-is not new, but the combination of the pair's delivery and commitment supports the basis of comedic performance. A good joke can go wrong and a bad joke can be well received, and it's the way in which it is served that determines the outcome.

Claire (Julie Bowen) is Jay's daughter, a wild child turned mother of three, and wife of oblivious and hapless Phil (Ty Burrell), whom she continuously pushes to apply parental authority in dealing with the pair's children. The first episode demonstrates Claire's mild success in doing so when Phil reluctantly agrees to punish his son, as per prior agreement, by shooting him if the son shot anyone-with his BB gun, of course. And once the punishment has been penciled into the communal calendar and given the slot of 4:15 p.m., neither participant can avoid the terms to which they agreed.

The other branch of the tree belongs to Jay's other child, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a gay lawyer who, with his overweight partner Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), adopts a Vietnamese baby, Lily. As he announces to the family, "As you may have guessed, we did not only go to Vietnam for pleasure," the family jumps to a series of wrong conclusions and opinions against adoption, only for Mitchell's partner to walk in to the tune of The Lion King's "Circle of Life," holding out Lily in the style of baby Simba, coinciding with the declaration, "Cameron is not that dramatic!"

The scene marked the closing of the first episode (Phil's remark on Lily's name, "Won't she have trouble saying that?" managing to provide extra laughs without shifting into overkill), but once it moved to the "final thoughts," segment, I grew worried. An initially unseen Jay began to be heard through images of the family gathered round Lily, his words seemingly sincere and reflective-disappointment activated-until, as the camera panned to him in his confessional mode, it appeared that Jay was reading the letter of the hapless romantic efforts of Gloria's nine-year-old son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez II). At which he, once finished, scoffed. What a relief-there is hope.