Happily, I received thirtysomething - the Complete Third Season as a Christmas gift in my family's grab bag, and it has joined the first and second seasons (previous Christmas gifts) in my very small DVD library.
thirtysomething originally hit the airwaves when I was - you guessed it - in my 30's. I loved it. An intelligent show about people like me, who were all busy trying to figure out their careers and their relationships and raising young children. The characters were just like real people in my life- I liked some of them and didn't like others. I cheered them on in their triumphs, and suffered through their disappointments and hard times, laughed with them and cried with them. It is my favorite television show of all time.
So, now, 20-some years later, it is always nice to visit my old friends, Nancy and Elliott, Michael and Hope, Gary, Melissa, and even that queen of bad choices, Ellen. I was afraid when I first revisited the old gang that the show would seem dated, but the dialogue and the experiences really still seem pretty true to life - the universal human experience,
Of course, the fashions have changed since the late 80's, and I wondered if our clothes were really that oversized. I do remember rocking some serious shoulder pads back then.
Other than that, the biggest change is the technology. Hope gets her first computer in the first season. Ellen's married boyfriend doesn't make it to dinner because his wife shows up unexpectedly and he can't call (no cell phones or text messages then). They call each other on dial phones and pay phones, and try out new fangled cordless phones but don't like them. Nancy researches her ovarian cancer at the library using microfiche. Oh, I remember microfiche. What a pain in the ass that was!
As I watch the show from "the future", I still relate to the characters, so much so that my husband, a thirtysomething newcomer, sometimes feels compelled to remind me that they are fictional.
But they remind me of who I was, not who I am today. I'm a lot happier and more content than I was in my 30's. In place of the angst, I just have my aches, and in place of microfiche, I can hold the Internet in the palm of my hand. While I much prefer reading the newspaper online than actually handling the newspaper, I especially like reading it in PDF format so that it looks exactly like the actual newspaper on my computer.
I guess that's what you might call the best of both worlds.
oh i LOVED that show...i wish they would bring it back as reruns....(maybe i'll have to pony up for the dvds)....i REALLy loved that show....when i see those actors on something else, i still see them as their thirtysomething characters !
ReplyDelete(and i too HATED microfiche !! i remember using it at the library in oakland...ugh....true pita...these youngins dont know what they're missing !!