Family: All Seasons

October 12, 2024 9:47 AM - Season 1, Episode 1

American TV drama running from 1976-1980 showcasing the Lawrence family, an upper middle class household in Pasadena, CA. Starring Sada Thompson and James Broderick as Kate and Doug Lawrence, with Meredith Baxter Birney, Gary Frank and Kristy McNichol as their children, Nancy, Willie, and Buddy (aka Letitia, Tizzylish)

Produced by Leonard Goldberg, Mike Nichols, and Aaron Spelling, the show had a reputation for thoughtfully showcasing a variety of topical issues of the day.

The show also helped launch the careers of Meredith Baxter (Birney) and Kristy McNichol.

Currently streaming all five seasons on Tubi.

posted by 2N2222 (4 comments total)

While I remember the show being on in the 70s, I'd never watched it until a over-the-air TV station did a marathon weekend showing, a couple years ago, when I caught a random episode and a half.

When it came out, Family apparently garnered acclaim for its serious take on a variety of issues. With my 2024 eyes, it's kind of a fascinating time capsule. I'm a few episodes into the second season so far, and it's simultaneously thoughtful, puzzling, and sometimes icky in the presentation of the ongoing drama of the Lawrence family.

The family is a WASP-y, successful household leading a comfortable existence in a pleasant and quiet Pasadena neighborhood. Mother Kate is a proper, educated, and always thoughtful homemaker. Father Doug is a lawyer. Their house seems to have been inherited, and while very nice and reasonably large, isn't ostentatious, with an accompanying granny flat.

Which is put to use when eldest daughter Nancy (Elayne Heilveil in first season, Meredith Baxter Birney season 2 on) catcher her husband in bed with another woman in the first episode. Nancy is a grad student(?) in her early 20s, with an infant boy and unfaithful soon to be ex-husband. Despite the milestones, she's so far not always very thoughtful, for example, taking her mom's car and saddling mom with a to-do list. She hooks up with a prior professor (David Hedison) at least 15 years her senior, who proposes marriage. She accepts, only to call it off after having an affair with a young Tommy Lee Jones.

Willie (Gary Frank) is an 18 yr old-ish high school dropout determined to follow his own dream while living under his parent's roof and manages to get a GED and reasonable employment by second season. He rides a motorcycle, presumably given to him by his parents, and often drives his kid sister around. Never seems to lack for resources. Despite being so young, he exhibits a kind of serious worldliness without much playfulness, and pursues romantic relationships with a pretty teen mom/kinda trainwreck, and an ambitious 18 year old entrepreneur baker/student who's less willing to sacrifice her goals for his bullshit demands.

Youngest child, Buddy (Kristy McNichol) is a 14 year old-ish navigating adolescence with aplomb using the accumulated wisdom of the household. She handles school with friend, a young Helen Hunt, rides a skateboard with amusingly large work gloves, and fends off a serial killer(!) and mean girls. Within the span of an episode, she asks her mom when she's supposed to be getting her period like all the other girls, and by the end, boop, there it is. No Blume-esq angst here, folks. McNichol stands out particularly well on camera. Easy to see how she gained so much attention as a kid actor at the time.

Child rearing, particularly with infants, is presented in a way that seems lax to notably indifferent, in a very 1970s way, from both Nancy and Willie's girlfriend's kids. In a casual bombshell reveal, we find out that the Lawrence's have a deceased son, Timmy, who died in a boating accident that seems to have been on father Doug's watch. Which appears to have affected Buddy far more than either parent.

This show is genuinely interesting to me for how much it's not like modern TV. Themes are treated with seriousness, which I can appreciate, but also seem like an alternative universe at times. the biggest clunker here was a two part episode dealing with Kate doing jury duty, which started to feel more ridiculous with its hacky courtroom drama.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:56 AM on October 12 [2 favorites]

This was a regular watch for us when it was airing, though I couldn't tell you anything about it now and haven't given it a thought in decades. IIRC it was a suitable prime-time drama for my precocious tween sensibilities. But I've always had a head for remembering actors and for a long time Kristy McNichol was "that girl from Family," and the other actors remained familiar long after I could remember that this is what I knew them from.
posted by Pedantzilla at 8:27 AM on October 13 [1 favorite]

I don't believe that I ever watched a complete episode of this; during the time period that it was on, I mostly watched Star Trek and the Incredible Hulk and Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica (the original) and Star Trek and random things on PBS and Star Trek and maybe a few other sitcoms while I was waiting for Star Trek to come on. I did watch a few episodes of something called James at 15 that sounds vaguely familiar--real kid deals with real problems--but I identified less with James than I did with Spock.

Kristy McNichol looked like the kind of girl that I would have liked to go out on a date with, but I was that kind of nerd who didn't date at all in high school. (I do find it ironic now that, while starring on a program that (among many other things) dealt with the issue of her having a lesbian teacher, she was dealing with the stress of being in a closet, and would eventually have an emotional breakdown while filming a movie in which her character is planning to marry a gay friend to act as his beard.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:11 PM on October 13 [1 favorite]

James at 15 (16) would be an interesting dive, as it's a show I actually saw a few episodes of when it was on. I see at least some episodes appear on youtube. I don't remember it with much nostalgia, but I do remember an episode where he gets laid for the first time. A bit scandalous at the time! I'll have to work up my cringe sensitivity gauge before I watch that one again, just in case.

Buddy, Kristy McNichol's character, seems pretty up front about homosexuality in the show so far. And the theme has come up in one episode so far. So yes, it's an interesting curiosity that not only she, but also Meredith Baxter, came out eventually.

I'm slowly working my way through season 2. Like I said, it's a strange and somewhat entertaining show to watch with 2024 eyes. Some elements are handled with a good deal of sensitivity, whole others are pure cheese.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:19 PM on October 14