Frankie Muniz stars as the title character Malcolm, and he is joined by Jane Kaczmarek, Bryan Cranston, Christopher Kennedy Masterson, Justin Berfield, Erik Per Sullivan and Catherine Lloyd Burns.

[22] In the season, Malcolm's age is intentionally not mentioned, with the revelation only that he attends middle school, "not the actual grade level.

[25] Jane Kaczmarek initially did not want to play the matriarch of the family Lois, even after receiving the script, but then wondered, "Wow, they really love me [...] Maybe I should read this."

[28] The character of Hal, the patriarch of the family, was initially underwritten, and described by Boomer as "a writer's conceit that just lay there on the page like a turd".

[30] Unlike other sitcoms, the makers avoided including laugh tracks or studio audience, and cinematography was done with single-camera to achieve a more "cinematic look".

[21] A privately owned home, located at 12334 Cantura Street in Studio City, California, was rented for upwards of $3,000 a day to film as Malcolm's house.

The site's consensus reads, "Malcolm in the Middle blasts out of the gate with a startlingly adept child performance from Frankie Muniz, a robust family ensemble, and a distinctive, punchy visual style.