‘I never realised how happy I was being a failure until I became successful.’
What’s it about?
Created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick (later executive producers on the short-lived but superb ‘teeny-something’, My So-Called Life), the show depicts the lives of Michael Steadman, his wife Hope and their extended circle of friends – all of whom are in their late thirties and attempting to reconcile the ambitions and dreams of their spirited counter-culture youth during the Sixties with the harsher, more bittersweet realities of working, raising children and growing old in the more conservative, middle-class America of the 1980s.
Who was in it?
The majority of the cast are still best remembered for their performances in the show, the exceptions being Timothy Busfield (Elliot) – subsequently Danny Concannon in The West Wing – and Patricia Kalember (Susannah), who had a long-running recurring role as Karen Taten in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
Polly Draper (Ellyn), Mel Harris (Hope), Peter Horton (Gary), Melanie Mayron (Melissa),) Ken Olin (Michael and Patricia Wettig (Nancy) have all worked regularly in TV, film and stage productions since Thirtysomething came to an end, while David Clennon reprised his role of devious, manipulative advertising agency boss Miles Drentell in Marshall Herskovitz’s later series, Once and Again.
Best moment?
Although it ultimately became a synonym for a particular kind of self-reflective, therapy-obsessed baby-boomer far more clichéd than any of the characters portrayed in the show, Thirtysomething’s greatest contribution to popular culture was its title, and the endless derivatives thereof. To have created a word is a rare achievement indeed.
Last seen?
After four seasons, it was cancelled by ABC in 1991. Despite being endlessly analysed and obsessed-over during its run, the show’s viewing figures were only ever respectable.
The future?
Watching Thirtysomething in 2012 evokes feelings akin to the moment in early 2000 when the Blue Peter team opened the time capsule buried in 1971, only to discover its contents had succumbed to water damage and turned to slimy mulch: a mixture of nostalgia and disappointment.
The high standard of writing and characterisation still shine across the decades, but the strictly middle-class sentiments and unmistakable stylistic trappings of the 1980s have aged so poorly that the show’s better qualities are frequently overwhelmed (unlike, say, early seasons of Seinfeld, where the dated visual styling doesn’t outstrip the comedic substance.) Similarly, the use of tropes that have long since passed into parody – wistful, out-of-focus flashbacks, fantasy cutaways, soaring musical cues designed to strong-arm an emotional response – create the impression of a TV series so intertwined with a very different age it’s irrelevant to a modern audience.
However, the perennial struggle of human beings to resolve their past, particularly when approaching the dreaded age of forty, remains a fertile subject for dramatic treatment – and one that seems decidedly neglected in an entertainment market heavily geared towards a younger demographic. A new incarnation for the generation who were barely teenagers when the show was first aired and are now thirtysomethings themselves would be most welcome.
Season 1 is released on DVD on Monday 26 November 2012 by Revelation.
What are your memories of Thirtysomething? Let us now below…