 Family Ties
1 9 8 2 - 1 9 8 9 (USA)
157 x 30 minute episodes
6 x 60 minute episodes
1 x 90 minute episode
1 x 120 minute episode
 Set in the heartland of middle America (Columbus, Ohio) in the
money driven, ultra conservative 80s, Family Ties features
sixties flower children Elyse and Steven Keaton who are now
parents.
She is now an architect and he is the General Manager of
a public TV station called WKS-TV.
While they cling to their idealistic views from their hippie
days, their academically brilliant eldest son Alex is the ultra
hard core conservative. He loves Richard
Nixon and wears a tie at all times.
Their 15 year old daughter Mallory is a tad 'intellectually
challenged' and is more interested in clothes and boys than any
academic pursuits. Nine year old Jennifer just wants to be a kid.
Next door neighbour Skippy is Alex's best friend who has a crush
on Mallory and is a little dense.
During the 1984-1985 season, Elyse gives birth to a baby called
Andy. The series then follows Alex to Leland College where he
finds love with another student, Ellen Reed (Tracy Pollan who
became the real-life Mrs Michael J Fox). Back at home, Mallory is
dating an illiterate aspiring sculptor called Nick Moore. Mallory
barely graduates high school and embarks on a career in fashion
design.
Ellen, it was said, went to Paris - and a new entanglement was
introduced for Alex, psychology student Lauren Miller, who
encourages him to take part in a study of over-achievers, attend
therapy sessions and reach inside to expose his repressed inner
self.
In the last episode, the nuclear family is finally, and
inevitably dissolved, as Alex graduates and takes a $75,000 a year
job as an investment banker in New York with a large Wall Street
firm.
Besides its continuing parody of Reagan-era
values, Family Ties tackled some sensitive subjects in
unusual episodes. Perhaps the most famous episode was My Name
Is Alex, performed theatre-style on a nearly bare stage, in
which Alex worked through his grief and disorientation following
the sudden death of a young friend in a car accident.
During the 1988-1989 season, the Keaton's confronted racism
when a black family moved into the neighbourhood, and faced their
own greatest crisis when Steve suffered a heart attack and had to
undergo bypass surgery.
The biggest problem faced by the Family Ties team was in
ensuring that the radical and often rude Alex won over rather than
alienated the viewers. Gary David Goldberg overcame this by
maintaining an open-door policy on the set (which, of course,
fitted perfectly with his ideals), embracing suggestions from the
entire production crew.
It was also customary for Alex to win his
way through most of an episode but be defeated or deflated by
show's end, and be depicted as someone who undoubtedly cherished
his family, even if he did have an odd way of showing it.
Though the show hit some bumps in its first couple of seasons, Family
Ties hit its stride once the producers realised Fox was their
real star, and the five-foot-four-inch
unknown Canadian actor became a household name.
Fox wasn't
originally supposed to even play the role of Alex - Matthew
Broderick was, but he decided he didn't want to be weighed down
with series work.
US President Ronald Reagan
stated publicly that Family Ties was his favourite show.
That's the eighties for you!
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