Kelli Williams took a Role as a Mom and a Detective in UPN's Initial Scripted Series, 'Ties That Bind'

Kelli Williams has played in some TV shows she didn’t want her kids to watch.

“Ties That Bind,” in which Williams plays a detective whose professional diligence helps create a personal crisis, isn’t one of them.

 

Premiering Wednesday night at 9, “Ties” is the first scripted drama for the UP network, which promises “uplifting entertainment.”

That may sound like code for “bland” in today’s TV environment, but Williams says it’s not so.

“It’s a family show,” she says. “Which doesn’t mean it can’t have edge.”

As the show opens, Williams’s Detective Allison McLean has sent her brother Tim (guest star Luke Perry) up the river for two years on an assault rap.

That leaves his two teenage kids without a viable parent, since their mother has her own debilitating problems.

So Allison talks her husband Matt (Jonathan Scarfe) into taking the kids in – alongside their own two teenagers.

Needless to say, it’s not a popular decision, since Tim’s kids aren’t at all happy with Allison’s role in their father’s incarceration.

Still, the alternative is foster care, so Allison optimistically hopes everyone will be pleased when she announces over the dinner table that the kids will indeed be living with the McLeans.

One by one, all four express their resentment, get up and leave the table. Her husband follows, leaving Allison sitting alone to pick up the pieces and put them all back together.

“The show is that scene,” says Williams. “She made the decision, now she has to repair all the relationships, including the one with her husband.”

“Allison’s a good person and you want her to win,” says Williams. “But it’s a hard situation. Sometimes Allison is a little too much of a Mom at work and a little too much of a detective at home.”

“Ties” isn’t the first show about a family cleft by tension between job and home, but Williams says the difference here lies in the perspective.

“There’s something unique about this show,” she says. “We see it from Allison’s perspective. It’s about her world.

“TV is great at writing for men. But there’s an audience of women like Allison, too, balancing a career and family decisions. For them to have someone to identify with is great.”

What she also likes is that “Ties” portrays a tense, difficult grownup situation without language or actions that make it awkward for kids to watch.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to change the channel in my own living room, even with shows that I was in,” says the 45-year-old Williams, whose children are now 17, 14 and 12.

While her own work has primarily been in shows like “Lie to Me” and “Army Wives,” she says it has still been a challenge: “You can’t always explain everything to them.”

Conversely, she says, “Kids always know more than you think they do. My oldest son had watched the first season of ‘Game of Thrones’ before I did, so when I sat down and watched the first season, I had a little trouble with that.

“But after we talked about it, I was more comfortable. I’m also a big fan of the show.”

She’s also a big fan of Allison.

“This is my first time as the lead of a show,” she says, “which puts things on a different level. I feel like I’m part of building this character into who she is.

“She’s in a situation where she’s probably going to have to give up something, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. I hope we get a second season so we can keep going.”