Fashionable-day TV viewers know to not get too hooked up to their favourite characters, contemplating how typically loss of life visits the small display screen. However it was a distinct story in 1991, when the baby-boomer drama Thirtysomething shocked audiences with the loss of life of Gary Shepherd, the charming literature professor performed by Peter Horton, in Season 4’s “Second Look.”
It was a merciless coincidence — particularly as a result of it appeared like Gary’s good friend Nancy Weston (Patricia Wettig), one other core member of the ensemble, was the one who was doomed. Actually, the day that episode aired, The Washington Publish ran an open letter from two of the paper’s writers who, alerted to some upcoming devastating plot twist that season, begged producers to spare Nancy’s life.