TMC
12-28-2021, 09:36 PM
https://jacksonupperco.com/2021/12/28/the-ten-best-family-ties-episodes-of-season-six/
https://i0.wp.com/jacksonupperco.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/0f814718d2474125ff526cc0e45df143.jpg?resize=204%2C300&ssl=1
Following this series’ popular and praised but unfunny and self-important fifth season, Family Ties enters Six with its priorities still unconducive to sitcom excellence, for after being rewarded while offering inferior material in Five, this year doubles down on more of the same, supplying some of the flashiest Very Special Episodes (VSEs) of its entire run — ostentatious dramatic segments that feel out of place within this gentle family format because they aren’t motivated by (or well-attached to) the characters. However, if Five’s VSEs were bad, Six’s are worse, for they’re all hinged around guests — Barbara Barrie as an aunt with Alzheimer’s, Constance McCashin as the mother of Mallory’s dead friend (in a clear attempt to gift Justine Bateman her own “A, My Name Is Alex”), and Darrell Thomas Utley as a deaf kid whom Andy befriends — and this renders them both didactically overwrought and narratively irrelevant, as they inherently subordinate the leads, particularly Alex, whose centricity is the series’ only saving grace.
https://i0.wp.com/jacksonupperco.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/0f814718d2474125ff526cc0e45df143.jpg?resize=204%2C300&ssl=1
Following this series’ popular and praised but unfunny and self-important fifth season, Family Ties enters Six with its priorities still unconducive to sitcom excellence, for after being rewarded while offering inferior material in Five, this year doubles down on more of the same, supplying some of the flashiest Very Special Episodes (VSEs) of its entire run — ostentatious dramatic segments that feel out of place within this gentle family format because they aren’t motivated by (or well-attached to) the characters. However, if Five’s VSEs were bad, Six’s are worse, for they’re all hinged around guests — Barbara Barrie as an aunt with Alzheimer’s, Constance McCashin as the mother of Mallory’s dead friend (in a clear attempt to gift Justine Bateman her own “A, My Name Is Alex”), and Darrell Thomas Utley as a deaf kid whom Andy befriends — and this renders them both didactically overwrought and narratively irrelevant, as they inherently subordinate the leads, particularly Alex, whose centricity is the series’ only saving grace.