Will ‘Thirtysomething’ Return to TV? Mel Harris Shares Update on Show’s Potential Reboot

Actress Mel Harris is hopeful that her former hit show, Thirtysomething, can return to television, as a reboot.

“We were in pre-production for the sequel when COVID hit. The script and everything was done, we had adult children actors, everyone was cast, and between the network read through and the network dinner that night, they postponed the show,” Mel exclusively tells Closer.

“It was like many, many pilots that year – a victim of COVID,” she adds.

The pilot, “thirtysomething (else)” was pitched to ABC in 2020 by the original series creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick. The new series planned to revisit the same characters, but decades later.

“I know [former castmate] Peter [Horton] and Ed & Marshall are pitching it outside of the Amazon/MGM space,” Mel says. “Amazon owns the original but have given their blessing for the guys to sell it elsewhere. There is already a wonderful script for the reboot thirtysomethingelse. We’d all love to do it and see the story continue!”

There’s even a Twitter campaign to get the show back on air.

“Pitches are in, now we need your help! Tweet @hulu, @nbc, @peacock, @netflix, and @AppleTV that you want thirtysomething. Use #whereisthirtysomething and we will make this happen together!!” Mel recently enthused on Twitter.

She and her former cast members – Ken Olin, Patricia Wettig, Melanie Mayron, Polly Draper, Timothy Busfield and Peter – remain close after all these years.

“The fact that we’re friends and we do reunions and get together I think is great. And when we do see each other, it’s like we never stopped, like it was yesterday,” she shares. “We’re just taking up a conversation that we had finished last night at dinner, and we started another one. It’s a really good group. You don’t get that with many shows.”