Customer Reviews

Family Ties - The Complete First Season

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Paramount has totally let true fans of classic television down with this much-anticipated release. Due to music issues, a handful of episodes (4 or so) have some original broadcast scenes deleted! This is completely unacceptable. They could have changed the music (which is bad enough in my opinion), but to delete the scene entirely is ridiculous! As much as I loved this show, I can't bring myself to support this set.

To add insult to injury, they still used the word "complete" on the cover! I've noticed in some upcoming Paramount releases that this word is suddenly missing. Check out the cover art for "Happy Days" Season Two and "Wings" Season Four. This leads us to wonder, are these shows truly complete, or will they suffer a fate similar to that of "Family Ties"?

As much as I've always despised music alterations, I've still bought DVD sets that used that tactic since the shows otherwise contained all of the original broadcast footage. But I will NOT buy a set that just hacks away at the episodes like this. If we do support these products, the studios will just keep getting lazier and lazier. Why should they care about putting work into their releases if the public will still gobble up whatever garbage they put out?

I really hate this, because I was looking SO forward to finally owning what I thought was going to be the complete and uncut version of each episode. I guess I should have known better than to count my chickens before they hatched.

Warning to all Family Ties fans that is buying this set,the set contains edited episodes.What I read is that Family Ties season 1 had some music that Paramount was to cheap to pay for,and so instead of replacing some of the music Paramount decided to delete some scenes from some of the episodes that contain music including a scene from the first episode.I think that's dumb changing the music is one thing but to edit episodes is a bunch of bull,we fans want to buy TV shows on DVD in there uncut form.Yeah go change the music but dont delete scenes.Of course not all the episodes will be edited so that is why I'm still going to buy this set to get the episodes that will be uncut.

This is in response to the concerns a couple people have raised about the theme song. In the original broadcast run the theme song was sung by studio singers for the first 10 or so episodes only. After that new vocals were recorded by Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams over the same backing tracks and their vocals were heard on all subsequent episodes. That is exactly what happens on these DVDs. After episode 10 we get the Mathis/Williams recording on all the remaining episodes. I have all these early episodes on VHS recorded MANY years ago and the theme song - with both pairs of singers - is exactly the same.

One of the funniest sitcoms from the 80's is finally released in dvd. This is the show that launched the career of Michael J Fox (21 years old and beautifully portraying the role of 16 year old Alex). Alex was the first child of Elyse (played by Meredith Baxter-Birney) and Steven Keaton (played by Michael Gross). Elyse was a very successful architect and Steven ran a public television station.

Alex was an avid republican (a Regan devotee) who often wore business formal attire (i.e. shirt and tie) as he wandered across the house. Mallory (played by Justine Bateman), the second born, had a relaxed personality and preferred shopping over studying. Jennifer (played by Tina Yothers) was the cute youngster in the family. The majority of the show's humor is derived from the tension between Alex's traditional mindset, Mallory's uninhibited consumerism, and their parents' attitudes (who grew up as the care-free non-materialistic children in the 1960s).

The episodes for season 1 are:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: Not with My Sister You Don't
Episode 3: I Know Jennifer's Boyfriend
Episode 4: Summer of '82
Episode 5: I Never Killed for My Father
Episode 6: Give Your Uncle a Kiss
Episode 7: Big Brother Is Watching
Episode 8: No Nukes Is Good Nukes
Episode 9: Death of a Grocer
Episode 10: Have Gun, Will Unravel
Episode 11: A Christmas Story
Episode 12: Oops
Episode 13: Sherry Baby
Episode 14: The Fugitive: Part 1
Episode 15: The Fugitive: Part 2
Episode 16: Margin of Error
Episode 17: French Lessons
Episode 18: I Gotta Be Ming
Episode 19: Suzanne Takes You Down
Episode 20: The Fifth Wheel
Episode 21: Stage Fright
Episode 22: Elyse D'Arc

Highly recommended sitcom full of amusing political banter between the parents (liberal democrats) and the son (conservative republican).

I came on here to complain about music issues in the Season 1 DVD. I'm a big fan of Family Ties, but I have not seen most of these episodes in at least 15 years, so I don't remember a lot of things. What I came on to complain about is that on the DVD box it says in small letters that the music is different than when the show originally aired. I had no idea that some complete scenes were missing like the other reviewers pointed out. Like I said, it's been too long for me to remember. I thought it was bad when the music on Northern Exposure was changed so they didn't have to pay for the music, but to take the entire scene out is indeed blasphemy, especially when it sayd "Complete" on the box. I guess those deleted scenes explains why someof the fade ins after the act break seemed odd to me. In one episode, the camera fades in an Alex goes up and turn the radio station that his dad is listening to, and complains about the song. You actually don't hear any song until he changes the station.

Anybody remember Freaks And Geeks? They refused to release those DVD's until they had all of the original music that was in the episodes that aired. And every one of those episodes had music from 3-6 popular bands. If that show which had few fans can get all of the music right, you'd think they could do it for Family Ties.

Besides that, there's some video issues, like lines through the image on the left side of the screen.

The show is still a 5/5, but we're talking the DVD set here, and it's far from perfect, and actually nowhere near as good as it should be. Sad thing is, if they cut scenes and changed the music for season 1, they'll probably do it for all of the seasons.

And lastly, there's not ANY bonus features on this DVD set at all. Not even TV ads or anything. This is the first TV DVD set I'v ever boughten that didn't have any bonus features at all.

My fiance has been going on and on about how much he wants Family Ties. Constantly checking the tv guide to see if he could catch a show. He is going to be so thrilled. I can't wait to buy it from him. They released every show imaginable but this one. Finally. I agree and hope other seasons closely follow.

Thursday nights in the mid 1980's were a special time for sitcom fans. Starting in 1984, NBC offered a killer lineup: The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and Night Court. Cosby may have had the most laughs, Cheers had an unbeatable cast, and Night Court was the underdog favorite. But Family Ties had humor AND heart, and stands out in my mind as the best of that bunch.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I realize TIES premiered in 1982. And I also realize that this first season was a bit rough around the edges. The juxtaposition of "hippy" couple Steven & Elyse Keaton with the Reagan-era 80's was the starting point of much of the humor. And some of it may be hard for younger viewers to understand. The ultimate irony of the Keatons' situation is that oldest son Alex was a card-carrying Republican, a living embodiment of the "establishment" that Steven & Elyse fought against in their own youth.

Of course, Michael J. Fox's Alex Keaton would become the show's breakout star. And with no disrespect intended to the rest of the cast, he probably deserved it. Fox seemed born to play the role that brought him his greatest fame. Even a less-than-stellar script (and there were a few of those in season one) could be bolstered by his presence.

It would be a couple of more seasons before Family Ties would really hit its stride. But it's important to see it from the beginning, to watch all the characters grow (Tina Yothers in particular gets a lot less irritating in subsequent years). I hope season one sells well, so we can get on with the better episodes.

And Paramount is quickly becoming my favorite distributor of full-season sets. Like the recently-released "Beauty & The Beast" set, they've managed to cram a full season in a single DVD snap-case.

We really enjoyed the show, and it was nice to finally be able to watch some of the old favorites that my husband and I grew up with. The boxed set was a bit disappointing, but liveable.

The one thing I absolutely cannot STAND, though, is the abuse of the "Anti-Piracy" message slot. On this DVD, it is filled with many, MANY commercials, and you can't skip past them. For that reason, I won't be buying any more of these.

Joy, joy, joy! I am so happy that this '80s icon will finally be available! I hope subsequent seasons follow quickly. This was my favorite show as a child and I've been so sad because it hasn't been available on DVD. I'm very excited to share this series with my own children as it has cute, precocious kids but they aren't sassy or doing things inappropriate for their ages as I've found in even the best of todays family programming. It will be dated by all the political references, but those will be over my little ones heads anyway and will be great fun for me to revisit. I can't wait for it to arrive!

It didn't take me long to watch every one of these episodes from season one. It's hard not to love a show when you've got such warm and funny characters, and writing that reflects some early 1980s politics (some things don't change). Since I hadn't seen these episodes in many years, I couldn't tell if they had been edited. What I do know is that they came in at around 24 minutes each, which is pretty good.

While there are different voices singing the theme song on a few of the episodes, it did not deter from the overall quality of this DVD set. I'm looking forward to buying season two as it should contain the hilarious episode "The Harder They Fall", with Alex's extremely obnoxious teacher, Ruben Tedesco.

Note added April 2008: My review was based on viewing the Region 1 DVD release; so my earlier comment about each episode being around 24 minutes long may not apply to the recently released Australian Region 4 set - see my Adam 12 review for further comments about Region 4 running times.