TV's new families: nostalgia, but with an edge

This fall, doctors, lawyers, and cops are having to share the airwaves with another grueling profession. This one also features long hours, over-the-top stress, and life-and-death decisions. But forget leggy secret agents and gun-toting heroes. This season, about half the new TV stars answer to "Mom" and "Dad."

Some say it grows out of nostalgia for the American family nest. Others see a growing need for comic relief in serious times.

Whatever the cause, networks across the broadcast spectrum are cuddling up to moms, dads, kids, pets – the whole home-and-hearth magilla. Some 16 of the 34 new network shows are takes on the American family.

But this fall, it's a hipper crew – old values with an iconoclastic twist, irreverence that merges with ribaldry. So while the new season will feature far more families onscreen, you're a lot less likely to see whole families tuning in together, especially if the kids are under age 10.

The networks are happily, lovingly facing down the trials of working moms ("8 Simple Rules," "Life with Bonnie"), single dads ("Everwood"), cross-cultural childrearing, ("Greetings from Tucson"), and the old tribulations of growing up ("American Dreams," "Do Over," "That Was Then," "Hidden Hills," "The Grubbs").

"After years of trying to be daring and experimental and cutting edge, networks are definitely going back to basics ... which means family," says Joe Adalian, TV editor for Daily Variety. "A lot of creative types and development execs don't like the trend because they see the shows as vanilla, plain, conservative, been-there-done-that. But viewers want the old meat and potatoes."

The networks have picked up on a national mood. It's a longing for simpler times that echoes post-Watergate and Vietnam America – a wistfulness that spawned 50s nostalgic hits such as "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley."

"It could definitely speak to this cultural need to stay close to home to reconnect with sources of our own nurturance," says Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education.

But this season isn't a repeat of earlier decades. Nor is it merely riding on enthusiasm for family-focused hits "Seventh Heaven" (WB), "Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS), "Malcolm in the Middle" (FOX), and "Gilmore Girls" (WB).

This fall's fare reflects a coarsened American family, closer to the real thing than fantasy households of "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Donna Reed Show." Viewers are hungry for the moral temperature of "Father Knows Best," combined with the hip irony of "Seinfeld."

But such edge means that while the new season features more families onscreen, it's not always family fare."For all kinds of reasons – from the way characters treat each other in these shows, to the presence of sexual content – these are not shows many families will feel comfortable watching together," says Robert Thompson, Director of the Center for the Study of Popular TV at Syracuse University.

That awkwardness, combined with more TVs per household, means the new season heralds no return to intergenerational viewing.

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