‘thirtysomething’

Last Monday [October 2, 2017], I wrote of the 40th anniversary of the premiere of the CBS series Lou Grant. With the 2017–18 television season less than a month old, and with every Monday in October a remembrance of past series’ premiere anniversaries, this entry looks back 30 years. Coincidentally, this is thirtysomething.

Created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, thirtysomething premiered on ABC on September 29, 1987. According to Wikipedia.org, in its description of the series, “[thirtysomething] tells of Baby Boomers living in their thirties who reside in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and examines how this group of friends learn to negotiate their prior involvement with early 1970s counterculture as young adults, in contrast to the yuppie lifestyle which dominated American culture during the 1980s.”

thirtysomething was very reflective of life during the Republican Party presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. In fact, thirtysomething’s run was during Reagan and Bush. Its last original episode was May 28, 1991.

The 1987–88 television season was the last on record in which two freshmen series—thirtysomething and The Wonder Years (which premiered after Super Bowl XXII on January 31, 1988)—won best-series Emmys. It was also the last season on record ABC captured both prizes for outstanding drama series and outstanding comedy series for the same season. thirtysomething, in fact, was prized in each of its four seasons; most notably, in the performances, as Patricia Wettig (who played housewife Nancy) and Melanie Mayron (who played the artist Melissa) won statues. (Wettig, married to male lead Ken Olin, won supporting actress in 1988 and lead actress in 1990 and 1991. Mayron won supporting actress in 1989. Also: Timothy Busfield, whose character was married to Wettig’s, won supporting actor in 1991.)

Had thirtysomething run at least two more years, could it have also been reflective of the period that gave us at least the first year of the Democratic Party presidency of Bill Clinton?

I am including a YouTube-uploaded video of the series’ theme music, partly by W.G. Snuffy Walden (who went on to compose the themes for ABC’s Roseanne and NBC’s The West Wing, among many others, which are also two series with political and/or cultural impact). I considered the pilot. But, the video I came across had an annoying crawl message. Considering many at the time found thirtysomething to be very annoying, that may have been an appropriate inclusion.