thirtysomething
thirtysomething
| 29 September 1987 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
  • Reviews
    GamerTab That was an excellent one.
    Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant
    SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling
    Aryana Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
    Sjoerd (Filmfan-NL) The series is being rerun on one of the Dutch commercial channels, in a time slot usually occupied by home shopping broadcasts. It's probably cheap. And that's no surprise to me. I vaguely recall having seen some episodes on a previous run. Today, after having seen only half of one episode bad memories popped up. The show stinks. Incredibly flat, stereotype, characters, a dull storyline, all the predictable issues being tackled in even more predictable fashion, styled along the American way, which especially in Europe makes people's hair stand on end. Outdated, boring, poorly acted. Identification with any of the characters is highly unlikely, in particular to people with at least half a brain.Without having said a single thing that actually happens in the show, without having quoted one single line of text, I probably have said all there is to say about this show. In that sense, above comments may be considered a spoiler ! Can you spell waste of time ?
    Victor Field The line above was how Lifetime plugged this show about yuppies when they repeated the four series; Fascinating Aida chose to describe the likes of Michael, Eliot et al as "Yawningly Uninteresting People Paid Irritatingly Excessive Salaries." Many non-fans of "thirtysomething" tended to agree, but despite not turning thirtysomething myself until well after I'd seen Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz's compelling series, I begged and beg to differ.Focusing on Michael and Hope Seligman and their daughter Janey, Eliot and Nancy Weston and their children (Ethan and the other one), and their single friends - professor and Bjorn Borg-lookalike Gary, husky-voiced businesswoman Ellyn and photographer Melissa - they exhibited an Alfie-like tendency to wonder "What's it all about?" but it was done with sensitivity and more humour than you would expect considering the misery they went through, from Michael and Eliot's advertising company closing down to Nancy's battle with cancer. They were prone to indulging in fantasies throughout (the episode "Whose Forest Is This?" was virtually all fantasy, revolving as it did around the children's book Nancy and Ethan wrote together), but unlike a certain Boston lawyer, no dancing babies were involved and the only singing was on the soundtrack (Carly Simon notwithstanding)."thirtysomething" was essentially the soap for people who hated soaps, but better than that; the creative team proved that it wasn't a fluke when most of them came up with the marvellous "My So-Called Life." But I still think they shouldn't have killed off Gary.Footnote: Miles Drentell, the slimy rival advertising man who Michael was compelled to work for, returned (again played by David Clennon) in Zwick and Herskovitz's later series "Once and Again," in one of those crossovers you almost never see in the hermetically sealed world of British television, which is one reason I always liked this show and was not happy when Sky One dropped it. (Another reason was Sela Ward, but that's another story...)
    jbran Ellyn's wedding episode was the best ever. This show was my favorite and this episode was the perfect example of why. It was the perfect mix of poignant and realistic. This episode has some of the funniest scenes from the series that morph into the most bittersweet. I think this show's effects are still being felt in programming today.
    UtahCJD This is a series that started out good, and only got better! wow! The cast working together so well the way they did made it even better. Everyone fit together so nicely, and it went so well. I have this on tape and I wish I could buy it on permanent tape. So many fav episodes! wonderful series! Love it!