Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 23, 1991 TAG: 9102230466
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES ENDRST THE HARTFORD COURANT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gary was supposed to die on ABC's "thirtysomething" - not Nancy.
Most viewers of the drama had been expecting the worst for Patricia Wettig's character, who for a year has been fighting ovarian cancer and got the results of her "second-look surgery" (good news).
But rumors of death had been haunting the Peter Pan professor Gary (played by Peter Horton) for weeks, even though he was as healthy and, relatively speaking, as happy as anyone else on the program (which is known for its high-angst quotient).
So why kill Gary and save Nancy?
According to Ed Zwick, co-executive producer of the Emmy-award-winning show, "I guess it had always been our intention to talk about mortality on this show - and loss. And it was, I guess, a very deliberate choice to say sometimes in life some very wonderful things happen, and some very horrible things happen, and often they happen at the same time."
Zwick said that killing off Gary - he perished off camera in a horrific car crash - was planned "at least a year ago."
The story line had nothing to do, however, with Horton's budding career behind the camera. (Horton produced a NBC TV-movie earlier this season as well as several past episodes of "thirtysomething.")
"It had only to do with story lines," Zwick said. "We prevailed upon Peter to do this. It happened to coincide with some change in emphasis in his career, but it was his willingness to go along with it rather than his request that it happened."
But why Gary?
He was picked, said Zwick, "with the same randomness that these things always happen. He didn't deserve to die any more than Nancy deserved to have cancer. There is no pattern or reason, and I can't confess to having one."
So is Nancy, fans need to know, in the clear? Is she likely to be, as her doctor put it, "healthy" - through with cancer?
Zwick, stingy with story lines, replied, "Well, I don't think that anyone who has cancer is ever through with it. I think it continues to affect them for their entire life.
"The prognosis now is very good, but, as you know, in every life there is no certainty. That was, I guess, the point of the whole show."
The surviving characters will try to go on as best they can, though Zwick, again, would not say exactly where they are going.
"Once something happens like this," he said, "I think it has an effect on people; it affects everyone differently, and it tends to be not about the dead but about the living and how they respond, and how it changes them or how it doesn't. I think that is something we will now explore."
So what's next for "thirtysome-thing"?
Life itself.
"Life continues, and there's something very beautiful and very sad about that," said Zwick. "Ellyn (Polly Draper) is going to get married. That's not going to stop. That'll be wonderful and joyous, and yet will be tinged by what has just happened. Nothing can be unaffected, and yet life continues."
Last Tuesday's episode, with Gary's memorial service as the story line, was pre-empted locally. WSET-Channel 13 will broadcast that program at 11:30 p.m. Saturday (today).
by CNB