A sitcom writer whose own life went into Modern Family's Mitchell and Cameron, and who stayed for all eleven seasons, the good three and the repetitive eight. His share of the early years is real, and hard to isolate.
Fi1m perspective
Most weeks of Modern Family give a storyline to Mitchell and Cameron, and when it is one of the ones that pauses the mockumentary interviews to let the couple be uncomfortable with each other, the writer's name is quite often Abraham Higginbotham. This is his territory, and he has said so plainly: "So much of what happened in my life went into Mitch and Cam." Surrogacy, coming out, the ordinary friction of gay family life inside a family that considers itself modern: these went into episodes such as Aunt Mommy (2012), and they are the show's most personal material.
He came to writing from acting, and got his first staff job by way of a spec script that took him to Will & Grace, where he produced in 2005 and 2006. Before that he wrote and story-edited on Arrested Development (2003), which remains the sharpest thing with his name on it and the one we hold in highest regard. He created and ran his own sitcom, Do Not Disturb, in 2008. Then came Modern Family in its first year, and he did not leave until it ended in 2020, having risen from writer to executive producer and written dozens of episodes, several of them with Jon Pollack.
Television comedy is written in a room, and it is honest to say that a staff writer's share is hard to prise loose from the show's. Our review of Arrested Development praises performances that reward close attention and finds the storytelling tiring in later stretches; it does not name him. Neither does our review of Modern Family, which calls the writing sharp and the cast almost without a weak link. We laughed at the early Mitchell and Cameron episodes more than we expected to, and the reason was specific: the arguments sounded like two people who had had them before, off screen, which is what happens when a writer uses material he actually has.
The caveat is the long tail. Our review puts the best of Modern Family in its first three seasons and says the eight after that mostly repeat the jokes. Higginbotham was there for every one of them, and by the end he was among the people in charge. Somewhere in the middle seasons we found we could predict the closing reconciliation from the cold open, and were irritated, because the show had already proved it could do better. Steven Levitan's format gives a writer a great deal of rope, and eleven years is a great deal of rope.
Since the show ended he has written and produced on Uncoupled (2022), which we have not reviewed. He has also said he enjoys writing Jay, which is worth knowing about a man so identified with the couple downstairs. If you want to see what he brings, watch the first three seasons and notice which household you are glad to get back to. Then stop, as he did not.
Biography
Abraham Higginbotham is an American television writer and producer. He began his career by submitting a spec script for Will & Grace and went on to work as a producer on the series from 2005 to 2006.
His writing credits include episodes of Arrested Development (2003), where he also served as story editor, as well as Will & Grace, Ugly Betty, Back to You and Do Not Disturb. He has been executive producer and writer on Modern Family (2009) since its launch and contributed to Uncoupled (2022). He is a graduate of Boston University.
