NBC’s “Family Ties” has changed over the years since it was founded by Gary David Goldberg in 1980 to become a program about a formerly ultra-liberal couple coping with the responsibilities of a middle-class marriage to a show about their boisterous yuppie son relishing the delights of making money. The fact that Michael J. Fox portrays young Alex P. Keaton, an endearing 25-year-old actor who, in between television seasons, has garnered well-deserved fame in films such as “Back to the Future,” helps tremendously.

Mr. Goldberg, the show’s executive producer, and the show’s supervising producer, Alan Uger, have scripted an hour-long tour de force for Mr. Fox, no doubt as a mark of their appreciation to the actor. This evening, at 8:30 p.m., the television show “A, My Name is Alex” will premiere. “Our Town,” a tribute to Thornton Wilder’s play, is staged to show how Alex is severely disturbed by the loss of a friend and, while traveling between the past and the present, begins to question the meaning of life.

When it comes to characters created for the unique realm of situation comedy, Alex is one of the more intriguing ones. Overall, he is arrogant, a bright know-it-all with a knack for making himself and others laugh at his own expense while ignoring the needs of others. The writers of the show devote a significant amount of their time and finest lines to demonstrating that mean-spirited Alex doesn’t truly mean much of what he says. Mr. Fox does a difficult balancing act admirably, despite the difficulties.

In this evening’s special, Alex is particularly unhappy because he believes that if he had not declined a favor to his buddy Greg (Brian McNamara), he, too, would have been involved in a deadly automobile accident. “I was lazy, I was tiny, and I couldn’t be bothered,” Alex recalls bitterly of his youth. Then he comes to the heart of the matter: “Why am I still alive?” To find an answer, he turns to science and religion, consulting with a monk and a psychiatrist, respectively, in separate meetings. He has conversations with his parents, sister, and younger brother. He even had a disagreement with his deceased pal.

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