https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/arts/television/family-ties-michael-j-fox.html
Michael J. Fox's NBC sitcom may be closely associated with the 1980s, but it was "TV comedy before the rise of rapid-fire barbs and winking pop culture references," says Mara Reinstein. "Aside from Alex’s adulation for then-President Ronald Reagan (boy did he savor those 1984 election results), Family Ties rarely even acknowledged the outside world."
Yeah, but when they brought in Andy the show jumped the shark. It almost redeemed itself with the Nick character...but overall I prefer the first half of the series. But that just may be me.
shareI think they should have not had Andy.
It would have yes done much better with a spin off of the Keatons learning to deal with Mallory living with Nick and Steven and Elyse having to deal with their conflicting feelings towards 80's counterculture. I assume this is what they were angling towards with Nick. They just should have done it. It would have been far more interesting.
There was not another show like this on TV in the 1980's.
Goes to show how much they thought a cute kid could save a show. Growing Pains tried the same thing towards the end as did Brady Bunch before it with the dreaded cousin Oliver.
It always backfires.
Growing Pains sucked was bland---Family Ties at least had a hook of trying to navigate the generation and culture gap. They should have stuck with that.
shareGP was an obvious FT rip off but they didn't do it well. Sitcoms in general especially back then lack purpose and direction but GP didn't have much depth.
shareI thought the mother was too old to be having kids when they brought in Andy. I don't think he added anything to the show it's not like the youngest daughter ever played the cute kid angle which is why they usually bring in a new cute kid.
I think it would have been interesting to see the parents start preparing for empty nest syndrome. It would have been something different for the time.
Agree with that. The two oldest kids were already in high school when the show began. Thank goodness jennifer was never the 'cute kid'.
Yes, the parents should have prepared for empty nest. They could have done an angle re the parents learning how college was different from their era.
I felt bad for the father. What are his hobbies and interests what would he like to do now that the kids are older?
Nope! You gotta raise a fourth kid now grandad!
As per sitcom lore the father was more fun loving so I would have liked to see him get some happy time.
That kid didn’t fit in either.
Andy was only created because Meredith Baxter got pregnant. And she wasn't *that* old, in real life she was 36.
I was more stunned that in the last two seasons they started to incorporate heavy political banter between the family since Alex was so heavily Republican.
She looked older than 36 and her character would have had to be older too.
I’ll have to watch some of the later episodes for the political banter. I got bored with it when Andy came in.
STEVEN AND ELYSE WERE INTENDED TO BE FIVE YEARS OLDER THAN THEIR ACTORS ACTUAL AGES...MAKING ELYSE 41 AND STILL NOT TOO OLD TO HAVE ANOTHER BABY.
shareThat isn't "still holds up". All 3 camera style sitcoms with laugh trackless show's hold up better than "Family Ties". Unfortunately, there are only about 1 or 2 left.
But what are you going to do?
It's the NYT. Their slowly going into clickbait material.
Alex was more of a Nixon worshipper than a Reagan worshipper.
shareyes. They tried to make Alex socially conservative at the beginning of the series....but Fox probably could not pull that off. He himself was raised in Canada which had/has different ideas of what is liberal and what is conservative. So they just decided to let Alex gush over money and leave it at that.
share