Friday, September 09, 2011

Currently Watching: thirtysomething

I vaguely remember when thirtysomething was on TV, at roughly the time I was in middle school. My main priorities were: bad hair days, passing notes with my friends, whom I might slow dance with at the upcoming school dance, and angsting about the rest of my life. I never watched this show.

But now, thanks to Netflix Instant Queue, I have rediscovered it. I keep trying to find shows I can watch during the day when Keith's not home. He likes what he's seen of this show, but I wouldn't say it's his new favorite, so I feel okay watching it without him.

The main couple have a baby and are struggling with how to take care of the baby, take care of themselves, take care of each other .... all of the same things that we're dealing with on a daily basis. I enjoy laughing at the 80s outfits (the one woman always wears sweatshirts tucked into high-waisted jeans! Tucked in!) but the essential content isn't terribly different from many issues facing today's parents.

I haven't decided yet how that makes me feel. Better, because other generations have made it through? Depressed, because things haven't really gotten any better? Maybe a little of both. But also grateful that modern technology gives me the opportunity to watch a show that I enjoy in my free time, rather than making do with soaps or trashy talk shows.

3 comments:

Amy said...

I *tried* watching thirtysomething on Netflix, but I couldn't get into it . . . probably because I didn't identify with the child-rearing parts.


What I *did* get into, though, was Cheers. I watched allllll eleven seasons last month and I was inordinately pleased with myself about this accomplishment -- so much so that I was thinking about blogging about all of my deep observations and new insights that surfaced during my viewing [sorry, had an attack of the Sr. Lindas for a moment there], but I never really got around to it.

Truth be told, I'm too busy watching the complete run of Frasier on DVD, which I have to check out of the library because stoopid Netflix doesn't stream it. Sigh. #firstworldproblems

(Is it wrong that I refuse to get a Twitter account but I totally want to steal the hashtag concept to make little snarky asides in whatever else I'm writing? Can you do that in non-Twitter-message running text? Too late; I did it! Yay, me! Another achievement, and it's barely 10 a.m.!)

Ahem.

So, happy viewing.

Jonathan said...

I vaguely remember ThirtySomething, and now of course I want to go back and watch it :)

M. Lubbers said...

Amy: Yeah, if I weren't a parent I wouldn't like the show very much. They throw in a few single friends, but it seems like they make it clear that they are not the real focus. Frasier and Cheers are both shows that I've watched a few episodes here and there, but I've never watched all of them, in order. I'll keep those in mind once I'm done with thirtysomething and Buffy!

Jonathan: I think that (unlike Amy) you'd find a lot to identify with! Although there was just an episode with a circa '89 personal computer, and it was pretty laughable:)