The Good
A great show is made even greater on DVD.
The Bad
What would it take for Paramount to make the talent do more extras?!?!
Family Ties: The Complete Second Season continues to goings on of the Keaton Family. You have parents Steven and Elyse (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter Birney), young Republican son Alex (Michael J. Fox), fashion conscious Mallory (Justine Bateman) and the precocious beyond her years Jennifer (Tina Yothers). Showcasing how the previous generations of the 50s, 60s, and 70s have come home to roost in the 80s, Family Ties was both funny and real in how it gave us the median, middle class family.
Some of the stand out episodes of this Second Season have got to be “Ladies Man,” “The Harder they Fall” and “A Keaton Christmas Carol.” There are certainly more great episodes on here but I don’t think I should list out every episode that is contained in this 4 disc set. I loved “Ladies Man” because Alex pretends to be a feminist in order to attract the attention of a girl. “The Harder they Fall” has Steven and Elyse literally beating up one of Alex’s teachers. Lastly, “A Keaton Christmas Carol” features one of the first truly brilliant performances by a young Michael J. Fox.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Features
Michael J. Fox: The Best Gig In The World
We see clips of Michael J. Fox in 1983 talking about the character and that is juxtaposed with him talking about it now. Apparently in the very lean times of his career, Fox’s management used to only be able to get in touch with him at Pioneer Chicken because he used that place as his office. Also, the audiences used to lean forward whenever his character would come on stage. They also refer to Michael J. Fox as the Fonzie of the 80s and apparently Fox did a good job of handling fame well.
The Making of Family Ties
The Year of the Beard
Yes, they have donated a segment of this DVD to the beard that Michael Gross grew in the Second Season and then kept for the remainder of this show’s run. In fact, Michael Gross even has the beard for this segment on the DVD. Apparently, he had done a play during this show’s First Season hiatus and when he came back for the Second Season he had the beard. It was a mainstay ever since…
Video
Full Screen Format. These shows looked good. I can’t really say that they looked great because I don’t think that they were remastered for this release. Also, with soft lighting and traditional editing, they weren’t cut for the subtly or nuance of the characters or story. What they did was simply present things as they were and that was more than good enough. I just hate reading things like this disclaimer: “Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions.”
Audio
Dolby Digital: English Mono. The audio on this disc was also good. However, they had a disclaimer for that that read: “Music has been changed for this home entertainment version.” I could get really mad but I am so happy to have this show on DVD I am going to leave Paramount alone. Everything sounded fine, I was able to hear the jokes, and I also didn’t notice any major changes in the sound department.
Package
The Keaton’s are presented in a family portrait on the front cover of this release. Amazingly, they don’t look that dated. The back cover has another family portrait, some shots from the show, a description of what this Second Season contains, a cast list, Special Features and technical specs.
Final Word
If you have read my review of the first season of this show than you shouldn’t be surprised that I love Family Ties: The Complete Second Season. I think the jokes (while coming from an older style of humor) are still quite funny, the family situations are very relatable, and even more impressive is the fact that after all these years I still want to be Alex P. Keaton (minus the politics). I just think the writing of this show was really strong and the execution by the actors very solid. We don’t need a million cuts all the time, and because we had time to really linger and watch what was going on that added to the richness of everything.
If you bought the first season of this show, buying Family Ties: The Complete Second Season is clearly a no brainer.
Family Ties was released .
