The series focuses on a group ofbaby boomers in their thirties who live inPhiladelphia, and how they handle the lifestyle that dominated American culture during the 1980s given their involvement in theearly 1970scounterculture as young adults.[2] It premiered in the United States on September 29, 1987, and lasted four seasons. It was canceled in May 1991 by mutual agreement between the producers and the network. Zwick and Herskovitz moved on to other projects.[3][4][5] The series won 13Primetime Emmy Awards, out of 41 nominations, and twoGolden Globe Awards.
On January 8, 2020, ABC confirmed that atelevision pilot, which would serve as a sequel to the series, had been ordered. The pilot was never filmed, but was set to be directed by Zwick, written by Zwick and Herskovitz, and have four members of the original cast (Ken Olin,Mel Harris,Timothy Busfield andPatricia Wettig) reprising their roles.[6] In June 2020, ABC passed on the series.[7]
An ensemble drama, the series revolves around a married couple, Michael Steadman and Hope Murdoch, and their baby, Janie. Michael's cousin is photographer Melissa Steadman, who used to date his college friend Gary Shepherd. Gary eventually marries Susannah. Michael's business partner is Elliot Weston, who has a troubled marriage with his wife Nancy, a painter. Hope's childhood friend is local politician Ellyn Warren.
Michael Steadman (Ken Olin) andHope Murdoch Steadman (Mel Harris): Hope is fromPhiladelphia, and Michael is fromChicago but remained in the Philadelphia area after graduating from theUniversity of Pennsylvania. Hope is a graduate ofPrinceton and a consumer affairs writer. After having their daughter Janie, Hope becomes astay-at-home mother and initially gives up her writing. Later, she returns to work but struggles with her role as a mother in the process. During a difficult period in her marriage when she is pregnant with her second child, Leo, Hope contemplates having an affair with environmentalist John Dunaway (JD Souther). Michael's confrontation with her over this leads them to resolve their problems and rekindle their marriage. Michael is Jewish, and Hope is Christian, and complications from theirinterfaith marriage recur throughout the series.[8] Michael's original ambition was to be a writer, but he works in advertising with graphic designer Elliot. The men first meet at the Bernstein Fox ad agency and then leave to form The Michael and Elliot Company. When their company goes bankrupt, Michael and Elliot join the advertising corporation DAA, run by Miles Drentell. Michael's relationship with Miles erodes his marriage with Hope, who finally decides to accept a job in Washington, D.C. By the time the show was canceled, Michael had decided to quit work altogether so that Hope could pursue her own interests.
Elliot Weston (Timothy Busfield) andNancy Krieger Weston (Patricia Wettig): Elliot studied graphic design atRhode Island School of Design (RISD). His father Charlie (Eddie Albert) is divorced from Elliot's mother and now lives in California. Elliot's sister Ruthie (played byMeagen Fay), who lives in Philadelphia and is married with two children, has not forgiven their father for leaving them. Elliot works in the advertising business with Michael (initially in their own business, but later for DAA). Nancy was also an art major and is a stay-at-home mother to Ethan and Brittany. Like Hope, she initially feels bored and unhappy in her role as ahomemaker. After Elliot has an affair which leads to divorce proceedings, Nancy develops a career as a children's book illustrator and author, and begins teaching at a local art center. Elliot becomes jealous after she also begins to date and finds himself once again attracted to her. Eventually, they rekindle their relationship and stop divorce proceedings. During the final two seasons, Nancy struggles with, but ultimately overcomes, ovarian cancer, which deepens their relationship. Always a rebel, Elliot can never reconcile himself to Miles' preference for Michael and his own loss of creative work at DAA, and eventually quits DAA in a fit of rage against both Miles and Michael. He and Nancy move to California, where he finds his passion in directing and eventually makes up with Michael when they accidentally bump into each other during Michael's job interview atTBWA\Chiat\Day. Michael does not accept the job but briefly entertains the possibility of working again with Elliot to make commercials (and turns again to Miles for help in this endeavor). At the time the show was canceled, it is implied that this venture will not happen after Michael tells Hope that he will stop working so that she can pursue her own interests.
Melissa Steadman (Melanie Mayron): Michael's cousin and Gary's former girlfriend, who studied photography atNew York University (NYU). Her work as a photographer includes the cover of aCarly Simon album and photos inVanity Fair. Melissa has a complicated relationship with Michael, who is frequently jealous of her career path. She has an equally complicated relationship with her mother, Elaine (Phyllis Newman), and grandmother, Rose (Sylvia Sidney). Her free-spirited sister, budding actress Jill, lives in New York (and is portrayed by Mayron's sister Gale Mayron). In the first season, Melissa dates a divorcedgynecologist who has a daughter (played byKellie Martin) who does not want more children. Melissa later briefly dates Michael's boss Miles; this relationship ends when his intense attraction to her nearly evolves intodate rape, which she prevents and for which he apologizes. Miles never really recovers from his infatuation, but Melissa works to avoid him thereafter. Art school-dropout house painter and twenty-something Lee Owens (Corey Parker) becomes the primary focus of her romantic yearnings. They are drawn to each other, but their relationship is fraught with problems, mostly due to the age difference. After Melissa convinces Michael and Elliot to find Lee a job at DAA, the couple begins to drift apart and eventually breaks up. At the time of the show's cancellation, they are on friendly terms again, and Gary's "ghost" (as he recently died in a car accident) tells Michael that Lee and Melissa will marry and have a child.
Ellyn Warren (Polly Draper): Hope's childhood friend. Ellyn is an important local politician who works atCity Hall. Initially dating her co-worker Steve Woodman (Terry Kinney), she later becomes involved with a married man, Jeffrey Milgrom (Richard Gilliland), who leaves his second wife for her but eventually abandons her and goes back to his first wife. After the breakup, Ellyn develops a new friendship with Gary, whom she used to dislike. Annoyed by Michael and Hope's perpetual interference in their lives, Gary and Ellyn play a practical joke on them, implying that they are having an affair. The joke ends when Ellyn reveals she is once again involved with Billy Sidel (Erich Anderson), acomics artist and friend of Michael and Hope's, who set them up on a blind date. Ellyn had dumped him while still seeing Jeffrey, but after they break up she bumps into Billy, and they begin to spend time together. Initially unsettled by Billy's genuine and straightforward manner, Ellyn grows to love him. Afraid of his growing feelings for Ellyn, Billy has a one-night stand with a former girlfriend that temporarily damages his relationship with Ellyn. They eventually work through issues related to fear and trust, and marry in a ceremony at Michael and Hope's house, held after Gary's death.
Gary Shepherd (Peter Horton) andSusannah Hart (Patricia Kalember): Gary, who first met Michael when they were in the same freshman dorm at University of Pennsylvania, is a free-spirited, womanizing professor ofmedieval literature at a Philadelphia college, and Melissa's ex-boyfriend. When denied tenure, he thinks about becoming a social worker and meets Susannah, who works for a social welfare nonprofit. Susannah, who later admits to being shy and introverted, is initially an outcast among Gary's friends but develops a working relationship with the group to make Gary happy. Susannah and Gary move in together after she becomes pregnant with Emma and then marry before Susannah moves to New York for a new job. Gary stays in Philadelphia as he has found a new teaching position there that he does not want to give up, even though it requires him to teach American poetry. He falls into the role of astay-at-home dad after the move and becomes more deeply involved in his new teaching position. He turns to Nancy for help when he is assigned a course inchildren's literature and does not know what to teach. Among the books Nancy recommends isThrough the Looking-Glass, but she no longer owns a copy of it. Gary is on his way to visit Nancy in the hospital with a copy of the book as a gift when he is killed in a car accident. Michael, who initially cannot let go of Gary, is "haunted" by his ghost, who comes back to Michael through a mirror (looking glass). Michael learns to respect Susannah (who stands up to his controlling nature) as they turn to each other to cope with Gary's passing.
Miles Drentell (David Clennon): Michael and Elliot's corrupt boss at DAA who styles himself as a type ofZen master. Miles is aVietnam veteran who was once a photographer passionate about art but eventually sold out. By the time Eliot and Michael meet him, Miles is a ruthless and extremely powerful businessman whose complete lack of ethics propels Michael into periods of self-reflection and depression. Michael's internal conflict deepens after Miles promotes him, forcing Michael to also sell out. Clennon reprised this role in the seriesOnce and Again (1999–2002).
Russell Weller (David Marshall Grant) is a gay friend of Melissa's who met her while she was photographing a wedding. They became fast friends due to their mutual interest in art. His relationship with Peter Montefiore (Peter Frechette) in the 1989 episode "Strangers" was thesubject of controversy as five of the show's regular sponsors pulled out of the episode, costing the network approximately $1.5 million in advertising revenue.[9] It eventually led producers to refrain from sexualizing their gay characters.[10]
Shout! Factory (under license fromMGM) has released all four seasons ofThirtysomething on DVD in Region 1.
Mill Creek Entertainment has rereleased the first season on DVD in two volumes. On January 18, 2011, it releasedSeason One, Volume One, which contains the first 10 episodes of the season.Season One, Volume Two, which contains the remaining 11 episodes, was released on January 10, 2012.
In Region 2,Revelation Films released the first two seasons on DVD in the UK. Season 3 was briefly released in 2014, but was almost immediately withdrawn from sale for unspecified "contractual reasons" and has, to date, not been rereleased, nor has Season 4.
In Region 4,Shock Entertainment has released all 4 seasons on DVD in Australia.
Thirtysomething was influenced by the filmsReturn of the Secaucus 7 (1980) andThe Big Chill (1983).[12] The show reflected theangst felt bybaby boomers andyuppies in the United States during the 1980s,[13] such as the changing expectations related tomasculinity andfemininity introduced during the era ofsecond-wave feminism.[14] It also introduced "a new kind of hour-long drama, a series that focused on the domestic and professional lives of a group of young urban professionals, a socio-economic category of increasing interest to the television industry [...] its stylistic and story-line innovations led critics to respect it for being 'as close to the level of an art form as weekly television ever gets,' as theNew York Times put it."[12] During its four-year run,Thirtysomething "attracted a cult audience of viewers who strongly identified with one or more of its eight central characters, a circle of friends living in Philadelphia."[12] Even after its cancellation in 1991, it continued to influence television programming, "in everything from the look and sound of certain TV advertisements, to other series with feminine sensibilities and preoccupations with the transition from childhood to maturity (Sisters), to situation comedies about groups of friends who talk all the time (Seinfeld)."[12]The show also influenced the British television seriesCold Feet, which featured similar storylines and character types. The creator ofCold Feet wanted his show to be in the mould of successful American TV series likeThirtysomething andFrasier.[15]
Susan Faludi, in her bestsellerBacklash (1991), argues thatThirtysomething often reinforced, rather than dismantled, gender stereotypes. She suggests that it exhibited a disdainful attitude toward single, working, and feminist women (Melissa, Ellyn, and Susannah) while at the same time "exalting homemakers" (Hope and Nancy).[16][17] In this manner, the series was seen as "seemingly progressive but substantially conservative in its construction of reality."[18]
Almost immediately after the introduction of the show, the term "Thirtysomething" became acatchphrase used to designatebaby boomers in their thirties. This cultural shift was reinforced by theOxford English Dictionary, which added "Thirtysomething" in 1993 (under the word "thirty") and defined the term as follows:
Draft additions 1993 - n. [popularized as a catch-phrase by the U.S. television programme thirtysomething, first broadcast in 1987] colloq. (orig. U.S.) an undetermined age between thirty and forty; spec. applied to members of the ‘baby boom’ generation entering their thirties in the mid-1980s; also attrib. or as adj. phr. (hence, characteristic of the tastes and lifestyle of this group).[19]
for episode "Whose Forest is This?" (men's costume supervisor) Patrick R. Norris (women's costume supervisor) Marjorie K. Chan (men's costumer) Anne Hartley (women's costumer) Julie Glick
for episode "Michael Writes A Story" (associate producer) Jeanne Byrd (supervising editor) Victor Du Bois (visual effects artist) Simon Holden (visual effects supervisor) Steve Wyskocil
for episode "Michael Writes A Story" (music re-recording mixer) Tim Philben (music re-recording mixer) Scott Millan (effects re-recording mixer) Clark Conrad (production mixer) Will Yardbrough
for episode "Therapy" (director) Marshall Herskovitz (unit production manager) Lindsley Parsons III (first assistant director) Craig Beaudine (second assistant director) Roger E. Mills
(executive producer) Marshall Herskovitz (executive producer) Edward Zwick (supervising producer) Scott Winant (producer) Richard Kramer (co-producer) Ellen S. Pressman (coordinating producer) Lindsley Parsons III
A sequel to the series,thirtysomething(else), was pitched in September 2019. Thepilot was a co-production betweenMGM Television andBedford Falls Productions, which was behind the original series, andABC Studios, and producers were casting its four original main roles at the time of the announcement.[6]
^"The 'don't trust anyone over thirty' slogan of the Sixties gave way to a show calledThirtysomething in the Eighties, showing boomers grappling with having children or having left it too late." InAdams, Paul (2012).Power Trap: How fear and loathing between New Democrats and Liberals keep Stephen Harper in power--and what can be done about it. Lorimer. p. 234.ISBN978-1459402706.
^Hanke, Robert (September 1990). "Hegemonic Masculinity in thirtysomething".Critical Studies in Mass Communication.7 (3):231–248.doi:10.1080/15295039009360176.
^Smith, Rupert (2003).Cold Feet: The Complete Companion. London: Granada Media. p. 6.ISBN0-233-00999-X.
^Heide, Margaret J. (April 1, 1992). "Mothering Ambivalence: The Treatment of Women's Gender Role Conflicts Over Work and Family on "thirtysomething"".Women's Studies.21 (1):103–117.doi:10.1080/00497878.1992.9978929.ISSN0049-7878.
^Loeb, Jane Connelly (September 1, 1990). "Rhetorical and Ideological Conservatism in thirtysomething".Critical Studies in Mass Communication.7 (3):249–260.doi:10.1080/15295039009360177.ISSN0739-3180.
