I'm watching the first season and I'm really surprised how different Mallory's and the parents' acting style is. It just seems like the three of them are reading their lines without a lot of emotion. Especially Mallory, feels like she's in a high school play. Nice to know things became much more down-to-earth and funnier, maybe because of better scripts, by season 2.
shareI preferred the earlier seasons. They should have started with four children, a boy in kindergarten during season one, so they wouldn't have to do the add a kid thing later.
Instead of having Andy, Alex or Mallory could have dated someone with a child who regularly appeared.
Meredith Baxter got pregnant in 1984 . So the producers sensibly decided to just write it in , instead of stupidly forcing her to hide behind furniture and other props .
share"So the producers sensibly decided to just write it in"
No, it wasn't sensible at all. It wasn't in the best interest of the show. It would have been much better to have seen less of Birney for part of season 3 than to be stuck with a baby and then a magically, rapidly aged 4-to-7-year-old for the rest of the show's run. Adding a baby or little kid to an already established cast is a classic "jump the shark" category.
"instead of stupidly forcing her to hide behind furniture and other props ."
No, the stupid thing was for Birney to get herself knocked up in the first place. They should have stipulated in her contract that she couldn't do that. But given that it happened, hiding her pregnancy would have been the best solution to the problem that she created. It isn't as if she was the star of the show. The star of the show was, by far, Michael J. Fox, and few people would have noticed or cared if we saw less of Birney for part of a season. The stupid thing was to add "Andy" to the cast, who instantly became pretty much everyone's least favorite character.
I agree. Birney should have understood that Fox was the one carrying the show and keeping it on the air even when he was making mega movies back-to-back. There was no need to bring on a 'child' or write in her pregnancy as a storyline.
Maybe not stipulate that she could not become pregnant during the series. But that the pregnancy would not be represented on screen and/or as part of her character.
Treat it like (for instance) when male stars of other series had kids and their becoming fathers were never written into a show and it's plot lines.
This was probably a bad attempt to give the parent characters more things to do. The show was originally supposed to be about them raising kids and attempting to understand them, but they could not sell teen magazines (pre-social media).
Hollywood has to go with what sells to audiences and what can be tied into movies and cartoons etc re marketing. Family Ties could not sell toys so they had to do what could sell the tie ins they had. And it was Fox's face not hers which generated the most money.
I've been re-watching some episodes of this show in recent months and that was one of the things that really jumped out at me...a huge jump in quality (IMO) from Season 1 to Season 2. Not that the first season was awful, but I think it just got a lot better.
Michael J. Fox as Alex just stole this show, IMO. All the cast was talented (Michael Gross was really underrated in this show), but I just love(d) Alex. It's been fun re-watching these episodes...it was a very interesting show in a lot of ways.
He did indeed steal the show along with dippy Skippy the neighbor. I loved those two in scenes together.
As for Baxter's pregnancy, well actresses do have this thing called a life of their own. They could have hidden her pregnancy like they did Phylicia Rashad's on The Cosby Show. She could've been written out of some episodes. In fact she was written out of a few shows. I think she may have been on bedrest for part of her pregnancy.
I didn't mind baby Andrew. I just hated that he became five years old in the course of one year. So annoying when they do that with characters.
One of my sisters was in charge of booking entertainment for Oklahoma State University in the mid/late 80s. She booked (and met) Marc Price, who played Skippy and was actually a stand-up comic. A lot of"Family Ties" fans were hard on Skippy and Nick, but I liked them.
You make a good point about Andrew's aging on the show. It was funny how Alex made him his little protege! 😃
This is one of those TV shows that I didn't watch as much as the years went along. I always hated that NBC moved it out of that prime Thursday night time slot (I liked "A Different World" OK, but I liked "Family Ties" better). I was in 8th grade when this show began and was finishing up my sophomore year of college when it ended. I love watching these old TV shows today and thinking about what I was doing when these episodes first aired (and remembering watching a lot of these episodes during their first airing).
I thought Skippy and Nick were great. Very funny characters.
It was cute how Alex turned little Andy into his protege. But it happened too fast! I just don't like when they age characters that fast.
I didn't mind Sklppy. I hated how they constantly beat up on Nick just for being himself. It really kinda undercut the whole concept of the parents being 'free spirits' and showed that they were far more like Alex than they wanted to admit (only hang out with people who dress a certain way).
Even though she loves to shop at the mall, Mallory is very open minded about people. She loves Nick for who he genuinely is and stands up for him. You have to admire that. Mallory does understand what is right when it really counts.
this was probably why it was difficult to make a spinoff about Nick, most people did not want to see a show about the character who had been put down by several others. This is why you have spinoffs about Mrs Garrett and Fraiser. Because they are characters people are encouraged to love. And so they do love. They tried to patch things up with Nick and Steven Keaton but by then it was too late.