Thirty Something (styled thirtysomething) is an American television drama about a group of baby boomers in their late thirties.
Hope and Michael are a married couple in their thirties, living in Philadelphia, and struggling with everyday adult angst. Michael runs an ad agency with his friend Elliot, whose marriage to Nancy is beginning to show the cracks of age, as is the friendship between Hope and her best friend Ellyn.
Michael's best friend, Gary, on the other hand, is trying to get on with his womanising life, and get over the mutually-destructive affair he had with Michael's cousin, Melissa. It all sounds like just another soap, but is given a unique atmosphere by the production team (the Bedford Falls company, also responsible for ‘My So Called Life’) whose intelligent scripts, believable characters and frequent dips into the slightly surreal world of the character's minds places the series as one of the highlights of the late 1980s.
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Special Features
- Conversation between Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick
- Making Thirtysomething
- Features all new interviews with creators, cast and crew
Awards
- 1989 Won Golden Globe – Best TV-Series – Drama
- 1991 Won TCA Award – Outstanding Achievement in Drama
- 1988 Won People's Choice Award – Favorite New TV Dramatic Program
- 1988 Won Primetime Emmy – Outstanding Drama Series
- 1990 Won Primetime Emmy – Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
- 1989 Won Primetime Emmy – Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
- 1988, 1990, 1991 Won Humanitas Prize – 60 Minute Category
- 1990 Nominated Golden Globe – Best TV-Series – Drama
- 1991 Nominated Golden Globe – Best TV-Series – Drama
- 1988 Nominated Golden Globe – Best TV-Series – Drama
- 1989 Won DGA Award – Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series
- 1992 Won WGA Award (TV) – Episodic Drama
- 1989 Won WGA Award (TV) – Episodic Drama
Thirtysomething Season 1 Review
"…The thing that intrigued me the most about this series is that it never really did what I expected it to do, given the set-ups at the start of each episode. It almost always manages to go places and explore topics in a manner that feels fresh and new, which is no mean feat for a show that’s 22 years old and rooted in a very specific time and place which would seem to be well past its expiration date. The show is just as funny as it is poignant, and its themes remain just as relevant today as they did back then.
As much as I can get into a soap opera, this most certainly isn’t one. Each episode has a specific idea that it’s exploring, and the narrative doesn’t drone on and on from one episode to the next to form any kind of real arc, which makes for a nice change of pace given that so much TV drama these days requires you to watch the whole season to get anything out of it at all. (I never thought I’d complain about that aspect of modern TV, but there you have it.) Sure, the fashions are dated, sometimes the dream sequences feel a little forced, and from time to time an experimental episode will pop up that doesn’t work as well as the rest (“South by Southeast,” a Hitchcock homage falls pretty flat), but by and large there’s a whole lot to love in “thirtysomething,” especially if you are thirtysomething…or older. I can’t really imagine it appealing to a crowd much younger than that, though, and it just so happens that the 16 -ear-old living under the same roof as me had about as much patience for it as I would have had if I’d watched when I was his age. Maybe when he’s thirtysomething he’ll give it a shot." bullz-eye.com