The nineteenth TV show: #191 An American Family
Apologies - this has been a bit of a slog. We'd call this a reality show these days, but back in the day - this was filmed in 1971 - this was a documentary, an overview of the life of this family through nearly a year. It might sound like the Kardashians, but no, as a PBS show this had to be serious. And some interesting things happened - most notably, the parents went through a divorce during this year, which wasn't solely caused by the filming (any references are actually really circumspect), but there's an underlying tension that means the filming might have had an influence. It is, in fact, interesting to see that even in what feels like the first reality show of its kind, people are so aware of the camera and at least some of them are put on their best behaviour.
The hour long length of the shows isn't the only thing that's off putting. We're used to a bunch of reality show tricks these days that are missing here, including things that other documentaries would have done at the time. There are virtually no voice overs, except for a few moments at the start of each episode. That wouldn't have mattered much if there were good throughlines or stories, but as the show is mostly a bunch of unconnected scenes with only the loosest of threads, it's unclear at times what's happening. Not helping here is that they can't get the sound right, which means that a bunch of key scenes are covered by music playing through them, so that the things that seem interesting just can't be understood.
Then again, just as often it doesn't come off as well. It is said that this series was an example of how family members - like so many families - partially live past each other. A lot of the scenes show the parents and siblings talk at, rather than with each other, focused on their own problems while not necessarily listening to the others. The divorce certainly shows how the parents haven't communicated well, with the father away too often. The mother is in the middle of this all, but even then she doesn't always seem focused on the problem. The oldest son is in New York, living on his mother's dime. Seeing the mother and oldest son in New York together - one of the few focused, and because of it most succesful episodes - shows how they don't get each other. Lance plays it up to the camera, wanting to tell his story, but the mother Pat doesn't seem to quite get it either.
The family stated that a lot of this was caused by the editing and the film makers. I'm sure that's true - documentaries and all tv are filtered through that lens. But even if mostly fabricated and statements that were put out of context, the product creates a series with people that aren't as likeable, often filmed in a way that makes it incomprehensible, with kids that we once described as seeming vacuous and sheltered from the world. A few episodes might have given the right insight, but this many didn't do it, and the lack of context made a lot of it incomprehensible.