Nick Moore, played by Scott Valentine, becomes Mallory's boyfriend in season four of Family Ties, and their relationship lasts for the remainder of the series. Nick wears an earring and a leather jacket, drives a motorcycle, and greets everyone with an elongated, "Hey-yyy." He often gets dumb lines (which makes him a great match for how Mallory's character is often written), but he's a likable, talented sculptor and eventual art teacher, and he always treats Mallory well. But the way Family Ties treats him makes the show nearly unwatchable at times.
Alex and Steven (and occasionally other family members) make fun of Nick's intelligence, joke that he's a criminal, and never become truly comfortable with him dating Mallory. In one episode, we learn that Nick lives with his aunt, and it's implied that they don't have much money; (we see the fridge, and it's nearly empty). In short, class, education, and appearance are all conflated, by the show and the characters, into a great big ball of ugly elitism, played for laughs.
The episode that both engages with this the most and comes closest to acknowledging it is probably "Mr. Right," from season four, early in Mallory and Nick's relationship. Nick joins the Keatons for dinner at a restaurant but doesn't understand that he's supposed to select a lobster from the tank; instead he sets them all free. Nicks sees that he's upsetting the family and not fitting in, and he asks Alex for help: "I'm always getting in trouble around your parents. I mean, it really upsets Mallory, and I don't want to put her through it anymore.... I gotta be more acceptable to your parents, but I don't know how."
Nick gets "in trouble" for an unlikely accident and an honest mistake, but the show doesn't acknowledge that not everyone eats lobster or would know how to act at a restaurant that serves them. Basic familiarity differences, and the class issues that surround this particular kind of difference, are not addressed; the Keatons act like eating lobster is everyone's normal. Normal is also invoked in Alex's advice to Nick: "If you want to fit in here at all, you have to learn how to make normal conversation, okay? No more monosyllabic grunts….See, you got to know things. You got to read the newspaper. You got to get a job. You have got to change, Nick."
So Nick cuts his hair, puts on a suit, stops making art, and gets a job at a shoe store, but the only people who like this version of him more are Alex and Steven; Mallory hates it.
Steven, seeing how unhappy Mallory is, convinces Nick to go back to the way he was. His whole speech is played for laughs; the shoe store manager thinks Steven and Nick are lovers.
Steven says, "Whatever our problems are, we can work them out. Our relationship has to be based on mutual trust and respect. I love what you tried to do for me. But it was wrong, Nick. Don't change for me." The studio audience laughs and laughs.
That misunderstood-for-gay speech is unfunny now, very 1985, and false to boot; (it's not until the penultimate episode - more on that later - that Steven tries to work out his problems with Nick). The blatant linking of respectability to job status, attire, and conversational skills also feels uncomfortably outdated. (I'd love to read something on the evolution of the leather-jacket-wearing TV boyfriend and social class, if anyone has any recommendations).
The episode does nod at how boring "respectability" can be, as when Nick puts people to sleep with his discussion of the differences between rubber and leather soles, or how civic-mindedness is absurd when taken to its limits, as when Nick engages Steven in conversation by wondering, "Scientists say the earth is going to self-destruct in two billion years. Now, what can we as citizens do?"
The show and the characters do grow to respect Nick's art more, though Alex really only appreciates the sculptures when he sees how much money Nick makes selling them. And while the action literally stops when Elyse picks up a guitar, Nick's art is never treated with such reverence.
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| The Keatons take home the lobsters that Nick freed; Alex catches one that "tried to make a break for it." |
Nick gets "in trouble" for an unlikely accident and an honest mistake, but the show doesn't acknowledge that not everyone eats lobster or would know how to act at a restaurant that serves them. Basic familiarity differences, and the class issues that surround this particular kind of difference, are not addressed; the Keatons act like eating lobster is everyone's normal. Normal is also invoked in Alex's advice to Nick: "If you want to fit in here at all, you have to learn how to make normal conversation, okay? No more monosyllabic grunts….See, you got to know things. You got to read the newspaper. You got to get a job. You have got to change, Nick."
So Nick cuts his hair, puts on a suit, stops making art, and gets a job at a shoe store, but the only people who like this version of him more are Alex and Steven; Mallory hates it.
Steven, seeing how unhappy Mallory is, convinces Nick to go back to the way he was. His whole speech is played for laughs; the shoe store manager thinks Steven and Nick are lovers.
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| Yes, that's Alan Blumenfeld again! |
That misunderstood-for-gay speech is unfunny now, very 1985, and false to boot; (it's not until the penultimate episode - more on that later - that Steven tries to work out his problems with Nick). The blatant linking of respectability to job status, attire, and conversational skills also feels uncomfortably outdated. (I'd love to read something on the evolution of the leather-jacket-wearing TV boyfriend and social class, if anyone has any recommendations).
The episode does nod at how boring "respectability" can be, as when Nick puts people to sleep with his discussion of the differences between rubber and leather soles, or how civic-mindedness is absurd when taken to its limits, as when Nick engages Steven in conversation by wondering, "Scientists say the earth is going to self-destruct in two billion years. Now, what can we as citizens do?"
The show and the characters do grow to respect Nick's art more, though Alex really only appreciates the sculptures when he sees how much money Nick makes selling them. And while the action literally stops when Elyse picks up a guitar, Nick's art is never treated with such reverence.
The parents occasionally recognize what they have in common with Nick; more than once, Elyse says that Nick reminds her of Steven when he was young. "You know, it's funny," she says near the end of one episode. "If we were in college right now, we'd be more likely to be friends with Nick than with Alex."
"Well, we'd never get to meet someone like Alex," Steven replies. "Unless we were working for him."
As for Alex, he helps Nick pass an English test and get his GED (in part by associating the parts of speech with the parts of a motorcycle).
Now Nick can get his dream job teaching art to kids at the YMCA. But, as with so many character advancements on sitcoms, Alex's investment and Nick's diploma and job don't change the central jokes about Nick's abilities; the next season, we see Nick reading The Little Engine that Could with Andy, and it's the latter who's presented as the better reader. Like the shoe store moment, it's painfully unfunny.
In season six the show introduces us to Nick's estranged dad (the great Dan Hedaya), a used car salesman who left the family when Nick was 11, and the two reconcile. But in the end, the show seems most interested in a reconciliation with a different father figure. In the penultimate episode of the series, Nick stays with the Keatons while his apartment is being painted. He's in Steven's way, and Steven reacts rudely. Later, he apologizes: "I realize I've made things pretty unpleasant for you these last few days."
"Years," Nick corrects him. There's no studio audience laughter this time.
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| Isn't this a great shirt? |
***
OK folks, here's my plan now that I've finished the series: I'm going to write one more post about how U.S. presidents are portrayed on the show; I'm going to give you that in memoriam post I know you've been dying to read (sorry, couldn't resist the pun); I might write something about Michael J. Fox staying on the show even after the crazy amazing success of Back to the Future; and I'll definitely end with recommendations for further reading - and for watching the show itself. For all the reasons I've written about and more, this isn't a show I'd recommend most people watch in its entirety, the way I did, but there are some great nuggets I'll point you toward. If there's any other aspect of the show you want me to cover, let me know, but do it soon: to paraphrase Rod Stewart, with the quarter system, by late September I'll be needed back at school :)
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