David Bianculli writes a feature on NPR about the ABC show thirtysomething,  one of my all time favorites.

I vividly remember hating thirtysomething when it premiered. I was 30-something then and married with two young kids of my own, so I should have loved it.Many of my friends did. But to me, these yuppie characters were either too noble or too whiny, and all of them spent far too much time talking about their feelings

And I would have said to this writer,  whoever they were back then,  “and YOU don’t talk about your feelings?  remind me not to hang around you”  or “compared to what?  Other TV shows?  A big to-do is not made of extremely shallow stuff on OTHER shows?  By the way,  stuff that is so shallow that thirtysomething content and writing becomes absolute art as compared to trash. 

Now this author does go on to say: “But I also remember not giving up on the show, and eventually being won over.”

But there were SO MANY who kept up the refrain of “those whiny yuppies on thirtysomething”.  I sort of felt sorry for these people,  if they “hated” that show so much and actually liked shows with ZERO depth.  Bandwagon.  Social trends.  “trendy” to be “oh contrar”

I just watched the first season of the DVD set via my Netflix subscription.  And the gap between that type of writing and what has come since has grown wider still.  The show’s episodes after 20 years just blow away nearly everything since (the only things that come close are The West Wing and I’ll Fly Away).  The extras on the DVD were also pretty good.

OK,  back to the article.  When the author says:  “Honestly, when one of the big conflicts is having to postpone a reservation to play squash, I don’t want to embrace these characters. I want to slap them.”   I want to slap the author.  Are you kidding?  YOu kind of missed the point.  It is not a BIG conflict.  It is A conflict,  and I would venture to guess that you yourself find yourself getting all bent out of shape about far less.   This is why I sometimes wished I could follow just one of these people who rolled their eyes at the “whining” on thirty something and see what gets them whining.   

The writers,  in the extras,  said something that reminded me of a Seinfeld episode.  “Much of the show was about nothing”.  George and Jerry pitched their idea about “a show about nothing”.  Jerry said to George “I think you may have something here”.  Zwick and Herskovitz certainly did.  They had a lot of nothing,  interspersed with a lot of extremely well done ,  honest to goodness drama,  mixed in with what I consider to be just enough attention to “nothing”. 

‘Thirtysomething’ Withstands The Test Of Time : NPR