Despite their impressive credentials, the creative forces behind Family had to fight for three years (beginning 1973) before convincing ABC to give the series a chance. As Rowland Barber has explained, during the development ABC found the family portrayed in the series “at various critical times…too well-educated and too well-dressed…too true to life for Family Viewing Time..and…simply ‘too good for television’ “ (see Barber). These attempts to dismiss the project were discarded once the miniseries proved to be a hit both with audiences and critics.

Family also benefited from a renewed interest in dramatic shows during the mid-1970s (as witnessed by the huge popularity of the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man). In general, police/detective shows such as Police Woman, Charlie’s Angels, S.W.A.T., Starsky and Hutch, Switch and Kojak dominated the televisual panorama of the 1975-76 season. The appearance of nonviolent, well-crafted, and well-acted programs like Family constituted a refreshing alternative to the predominant action-packed TV scene and were readily embraced by TV audiences.

Family follows the sage of the Lawrences, a white, middle-class family from Pasadena, California. The clan consists of the parents, Kate and Doug (played by Sada Thompson and the late James Broderick), and their three offspring: Nancy, a divorced mother of an infant, Timmy, and a lawyer (originally played in the miniseries by Elaine Heilveil; portrayed in the regular series by Meredith Baxter-Birney); Willie, a high school dropout and a talented and idealistic aspiring writer (played by Gary Frank); and free-spirited teenager Letita, better known as “Buddy” (played by Kristy McNichol). During its 1978-79 season, a new regular character joined the series: Annie Cooper, an 11-year old orphan girl whom the Lawrences decided to adopt (played by Quinn Cummings).

Throughout its five seasons, the series engaged a range of contemporary social issues within the parameters of its melodramatic structure. For example, the miniseries opened with a pregnant Nancy divorcing her husband, Jeff (played by John Rubinstein), after finding him in bed with one of her girlfriends. This development allowed the series to explore, through the character of Nancy, issues related to the social position of a divorced, professional woman who is also a mother. On a couple of occasions, the show dealt with issues pertaining to homosexuality. In one episode, Willie’s best friend comes out of the closet, forcing Willie to reconsider his positions about both friendship and homosexuality. In a similar vein, Buddy faces issues about bigotry when a teacher she admires is to be fired because that teacher is a lesbian. On several occasions, the Lawrence matriarch, Kate, finds herself in difficult social, moral, and ethical positions related to her social situation as a middle-aged woman. In one instance, an older-than-40 Kate faces the dilemma of possibly having to have an abortion because she is expecting a child at an age when risks and complications related to pregnancy are higher than they are for younger women. In another episode, Kate confronts her insecurities and fears when she decides to take a job outside the house. At a different point in the series, she deals with having breast cancer.

Family not only reclaimed a place for hour-long (melo)dramatic series dealing with everyday topics affecting middle-class Americans during an age when action series ruled; it also prepared the ground for the prime-time soap operas centered around affluent and glamorous nuclear families–shows such as Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest that exploded in popularity during the late 1970s and 1980s.