Family Ties began as a product at CBS - originally planned as an one hour show. CBS passed on it. NBC wanted it as a half hour and live before a studio audience. Would it had worked if it was an one hour show?

if it was an hour long show, it wouldn't have been a comedy series, and what made the success of FT is its comedy scenes. So i dont think it would have worked. ;)

No making it one hour would have ruined the format, and they probably would have added alot of filler and that would have destroyed the show completely.

I think it could have worked for a couple seasons, but I don't think it would have worked out nearly as well as the Family Ties we know, and love today. If you remember, there actually was a 4 episode family ties drama, which turned out to be 4 of the worst episodes in the shows history. I don't know if that means anything, but the shows writers seemed to specialize in comedy, so unless CBS planned on having different writers that specialized in drama, I don't think it would have worked for long. Even with different writers it probably would have only lasted a season or two. I guess we'll never know for sure.

I think personally it would had worked. It would had focus more on Meredith Baxter Birney and Michael Gross' characters. Meredith is more of a dramatic actress than a sitcom actress. Gross does well with drama even though he was LOL as Steven Keaton. I think FT would had been like the first season of the show was. There would had been more storylines dealing with Steven and Elyse's relationship to each other and the children. I love watching Steven and Elyse as a couple. They were genuine on screen and you can see the chemistry. If the show was an one hour drama it wouldn't put so emphasis on Alex. To me that what killed the show was too many stories centered around Alex and in the fifth and sixth seasons the stories became repetitious and tired. Michael J. Fox is a good actor but there were other actors in the show as well.