SYNOPSIS

Family was a prime-time soap opera that followed the travails of the middle-class Lawrence family in Pasadena, California. Doug was the father, a highly independent lawyer, and Kate his quiet, steadfast wife. The series opened with daughter Nancy discovering that her husband Jeff was untrue (she walked in on him making love to another woman!) and it was all downhill from there. Nancy had a baby (Timmy), divorced Jeff, then began to having affairs of her own. Later she went to work for a law firm, which seemed more interested in her body than in her brains. Brother Willie, age 17, vulnerable and idealistic, was confronted with his first love, an unwed mother (Salina), then married a girl with a terminal illness (Lizzy). Little sister Buddy, age 13, feeling unwanted, ran away from home. Before Kate could worry about that,  she discovered that she had breast cancer, after which Doug was temporarily blinded in an automobile accident. An 11-year-old waif named Annie joined the household, only to reject everyone's affections. Then, if that weren't enough,  there was the dying grandmother and Doug's alcoholic sister.