It's on reruns here and I rarely find an episode that is entertaining. Was it always this mediocre?
I think that Michael J. Fox carried what is a rarely funny show.
The stories that revolved around him and had as little to do with his family as possible are to me the standout episodes.
Tagging on a "cute" kid was a sign that the show needed gimmicks to cover up its lack of substance.
Tagging on a "cute" kid was a sign that the show needed gimmicks to cover up its lack of substance.
And Growing Pains followed suite with a teenage runaway (DeCaprio) and then another small child. Believe me, this is a gimmick.
shareThe Add-A-Child-To-The-Show Cliche is a gimmick that is true, but if you look at the timeline of when Meredith Baxter was really pregnant, it matches up when her character Elyse Keaton was pregnant...
@ least family ties was watchable.....I bet it violated patient confidentiality laws to have psych practice in your house.
shareShe was also in All the President's Men and other than brown hair--she basically looked and sounded the same. Wow!! Kind of spooky too.
shareFox himself is a mediocre actor. He was an "80's star" (which isn't necessarily a compliment).
shareOh really and why is that exactly- I would say same thing about a 70's star-The 80's was a good to really good decade for music, film, TV, Technology etc
Kiefer Sutherland, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, River Phoenix, Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Linda Hamilton, Steve Martin, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy, etc made good to very good films and TV work in the 80's.....
Retrospectively, the show is so-so. Kind of a reverse generation gap. You have to understand both 60's and 80's politics and culture to get several jokes. It's very dated because of it. It does not consistently/entirely translate well into today. Overall themes of parents/family supporting each other regardless ARE still very good though Who on earth knew that Fox was going to be international star??
shareWho you responding to pioneergrrrl me or gbennet, Some shows like The Americans which is set in the 80's translates well today because of the whole Russia scandals........
What TV shows in the 80's do you think consistently translates today?? By Family Ties he was a international star as it was broadcast not just in the U.S, But also in UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, etc
I was responding to both. I loved Michael J Fox--had posters of him on my bedroom wall when I was little and saw his movies. He was a star yes, not at all disputing that. Sorry if it did not come through.
I think Who's the Boss (woman who owns her own company hires housekeeper who turns out to be guy with single kid) still would capture audience. We're still trying to figure out gender issues today.
And Hogan Family about busy family w airline pilot dad could still perhaps work. Look @ everything around airlines and/or their families today. Plenty of material to work with.
Murphy Brown would work too.
Michael J. Fox carried this show the way Neil Patrick Harris carried "How I Met Your Mother."
shareHe also carried Spin City too. It tanked the moment Fox left.
shareIt's kind of funny that Charlie Sheen replaced MJF on Spin City and then it didn't do so well, and then Charlie was replaced on his show 2 1/2 Men and the show wasn't as good either. From what I heard anyways I didn't watch much of either show after the main was replaced. Just didn't seem the same.
shareMike was basically a good person--who did some questionable things Charlie was questionable person who did some good things. Changed dynamic entirely.
I am sure Spin City could have gone on several seasons if Fox had not left.
Good way to put it. And I'm sure you are right about Spin City
shareThe 80's was not my era, but I saw a re-run of Family Ties while waiting in the E.R recently and I understand what was going on here. I agree the show was based around him/carried by him. He was just stunning.. I have to admit. The show was very boring without their handsome star. None of the other actors got very much screen time it seemed from the single episode I saw. Obviously for a reason.
shareyeah, the reason being they were pitting generations against each other, and appealing to men ... the forerunner of the right-wing mentality of today. Hated the show, hated Michael J. Fox, then and now.
shareThat was tv in the day - boring, insipid and totally lacking in substance.
I never liked Michael J. Fox, and I still don't.
The only thing good about this show was Justine Bateman, wow, what a looker.
I also hated this was the time when TV began to get really propagandistic, and
everything became all about money, to the max.
They made MJF appear cool, a young, selfish, smart ass ... smart Alec/Alex, who was smarter than his hippie parents. It was a turn the kids against the parents and the system in a weird way. The social mess that is America today is a result of that time.
It was all about how to trick kids who were the new advertising demographic.
This is weird to read, because that is the opposite message of what the writers had originally intended.
Their plan was that the parents would be cool and admirable and the kids would be lame and materialistic.
Alex was going to be completely rotten just because he was a Republican.
And as for Mallory, she had to be stupid because she was more interested in fashion than in politics.
Of course, Michael J Fox and Justine Bateman made their characters more three-dimensional than that.
However, that was really just luck and not what the writers had envisioned.
At the time I had the biggest crush on Justine Bateman, thought she was the most beautiful young lady on television
shareJustine Bateman is gorgeous but I think her character was written in a much less interesting way than MJF's. She was a cliche beautiful-but-dumb-and-shallow teenage girl. The most interesting thing about her was her boyfriend who the dad hated. I think all of the characters except Alex have this problem, that the writing makes them predictable and cliche and too much cutesiness (I suppose to make it seem kid-friendly). The parents kissing all the time and the kids going "eww." Alex was allowed to be unlikeable; it makes him interesting. It gave him a good dilemma (between being a good person vs making money/selfish/ego-driven) and you want him to make the right decision but you don't know what he will do. I think that creates suspense. For example, his relationship with his girlfriend, that was done really well and was memorable.
I think that dilemma is the reason why shows like "Who's the Boss" (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) are still watchable (even though very dated). (I tried watching a few episodes early in the pandemic and I was surprised how watchable it still is). Tony has a good dilemma: a legitimate need to foster his own personal and career development, but if he wants to be around Angela then he needs to support her. Even in the last season when the show was more about the pathos in their relationship than the sitcom humor, it is still watchable because Tony's situation gets more difficult: he has this amazing career opportunity and asks Angela to follow him and take her own career setback. Nothing he is asking her for is unfair, and she complies because she understands that he's only asking her for the same as what he gave her, but she's very unhappy. Tony can only be with Angela if he gives up his own (entirely normal and healthy) aspirations. So that forces him to make an emotionally wrenching choice and that's what makes the show so interesting even when they run out of one-liners.
Yeah, men are funny and women are to act dumb and be looked at. She barely got any lines or plots in that series, and always getting dumped on. Maybe that is why I have such a negative image of Michael J. Fox.
I like the "Who's The Boss" show. I never liked Family Ties and thought all of its humor was mean humor. Thought of it as a fascist kind of show.
Makes sense though I never thought of it as fascist...
shareThese days. maybe it's the pandemic, but I see everything through the lens of fascism, inequality, racism, sexism ... it all seems to be coming to a head in our society in a way that we as a country cannot seem to come to grips with.
shareSha la la la.
source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/familytieslyrics.html
WRONG! Tina Yothers carried the show! ☺
shareKnow that I think about it, would the show have not survived any longer had it kept with its original intent on having Meredith Baxter-Birney as the central star? I mean, when it began, the series focused on the trials of '60s flower children Baxter and Michael Gross raising a family that included a conservative son. By the end they were so marginalized they were interchangeable as the parent figure.
Now as for Meredith, do you agree with the sentiment that while she's a pretty good actress, there was always something not quite likable about her? And this became much more pronounced as the series went on. I suppose the problem is that Meredith, when you get right down to it, is perhaps someone who doesn't seem to inherently an actress. What I mean is that she seemingly has no flair, she's humorless, and she isn't particularly expressive.
I think with MBB she was always anxious, playing against the mothering thing because Alex had mother issues maybe. She was no June Cleaver that's for sure.
shareI thought she was pretty for being a 'mom'.
One downer now about the show is MANY years later I had a psycho boss who looked exactly like Steven Keaton. Kinda makes it difficult to watch the earlier eps where he is more prominent. The later seasons where Fox is the focus are great.
I think the problem was they were still trying to present mothers 'being successful' and working outside the home. This was still 'new' so they weren't sure how to tackle it in scripts. Now of course, most women do work outside the home and using childcare is not a big deal, but in the early 1980s, people still questioned if a woman was 'good' for leaving her kid with others.
Elyse wanted to be 'countercultural' but she had also grown up hearing she was supposed to stay at home--as did Steven and daycare was still not widely available including onsite. And tele-commuting for anybody was a mere dream.
Alex himself was genuinely torn. He realized his mom made 'more money' which enabled him to wear nice preppy clothes etc and have the things which they knew he loved--his dad's PBS job did not and could not pay enough. But it also challenged a socially conservative notion that women should stay at home and not work outside the house. And that if a woman did have to work, it was penny money. She actually was the breadwinner of the family. Restoring (even back then) that apparently very nice Victorian house vs a shelter or the streets was not at all cheap.
So yes, Alex does show that he's more of an economic conservative than a social conservative throughout the series. He likes money actually much more than 'keeping women in their place' And it's why he later falls for Lauren, Ellen.....who are strong and independent career-minded women themselves. He is uncomfortable with an ERA but he's not going to actively organize against it either. He just mild quips about gender in the earlier seasons. In the later seasons especially, he's actively and openly chasing after the 'strong' women' who are the most likely supporters of the ERA,
Alex is going to eventually end up on the board of 'whole paycheck' making money hand over fist while eating the same organic foods he grew up on. And he will realize that people do pay lots of money to eat health foods.....and what kind of women most love to eat from there lol! he's a swing conservative who realizes they are socially liberal.
Fox may have carried it, but Michael Gross was #@$@#ing brilliant as the father, especially in the later seasons when he had to deal with Nick.
I still laugh thinking of his reactions in the episode where he comes home and the kids had turned their house into a hotel for the Ohio State football game.