I've been checking out old episodes of "Family Matters" on TBS, and it's not as awful as I remember. I loved it back in the nineties, and stopped watching it when it switched over to CBS for those final dreadful years.
It's a very very nineties TV show, and has some of the silliest gimmicks I've seen in a sitcom. Urkel is THE star of the show and the writers do a lot with him, and then reuse those gimmicks ad nauseum.
The shift in characters is what hurts the show big time, as Laura's little sister disappears after a few years, as does Aunt Harriet, despite her son sticking behind to add the whole Mary Kate and Ashley vibe. Even HE gets tiresome after a few episodes.
Either way, I dug Jaleel White whose work on Urkel was shockingly versatile and layered. He could switch modes at the drop of a hat from his female cousin, to Stefan, to--sigh--Bruce Lee.
Either case, it's aged about as well as "Fresh Prince," as in not very, but taken as a nineties time capsule, it has its merits and occasionally funny moments, I have to say.
