Remember "My So-Called Life"? Here's the "Wicked" and "thirtysomething" Connection

[Pink Freud]

I never saw "My So-Called Life", but I've heard it talked about for many years, and Claire Danes --- who was only 13 when she was cast as its star --- has become a big star. The link below explains the corporate machinations that may have kept it from being a long-running series, and the writing talent that created it: Marshall Hershkovitz, Edward Zwick, and Winnie Holzman (the screenwriter of the current mega-movie "Wicked").

The columnist describes the Hershkovitz-Zwick series "thirtysomething" as "polarizing", and I'd certainly agree with that description for the series' first season of yuppie whining and navel-gazing over their guilt-laden good fortune, but the next three seasons, I thought, were brilliant. One final-season episode in particular, "A Stop at Willoughby", was so spot-on about the way advertisers manipulate us that several show sponsors pulled out just before and after that knockout episode aired.

I just wish some streaming service would bring the series back, even if only to hear, one more time, diabolical, Machiavellian ad agency boss Miles Drentell (David Clennon) tell his deluded, ethical ad writer Michael Steadman (Ken Olin):

“Nobody wants to be unpopular. That's why we're here. That's the dance of advertising. We help people become popular. Through popularity comes acceptance. Acceptance leads to assimilation. Assimilation leads to bliss. We calm & reassure. We embrace people with the message that we are all in it together. That our leaders are infallible and there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong. That's what we do. It's what we've always done… In return for our humanitarian service, we are made rich”.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... reen%20Gab