Last week, Lena Dunham delighted fans with the announcement that her TV show “Girls” would be getting a reboot. Dunham captured the 2010s in an unflattering, comedic mirror, and in like fashion, the announcement took the perfect 2020s form: a Zoom call, complete with shaky cameras and one rustling person who has forgotten to hit mute. On the occasion, six writers reflect on the television show that most shaped their generation.
“Girls” (2012-17)
When Lena Dunham, playing Hannah Horvath in the first episode of “Girls,” said, “I think that I may be the voice of my generation,” she was being ironic and self-deprecating. She was also on the money.
“Girls,” the tale of four liberal arts graduates trying and failing to survive New York City, is a sizzling critique of millennial malaise. The comedy exposes the truth of the worst accusations leveled against my generation: that we seek too much validation and avoid too much responsibility. It’s also a gift. Every generation is stickered with stereotypes, some fairer than others. Not every generation gets to point its naysayers in the direction of one of the best shows to air on television this century.
Having rewatched the series recently, I was struck by how much Dunham challenges her viewers. We sympathize and root for unlikable characters. The politics is impossible to summarize neatly. The show has aged perfectly, thanks in large part to Dunham’s writing. It’s just so funny.
The voice of a generation returns soon, with a five-episode limited series. If the “Girls” revival captures even half of the messy brilliance of the original series, I’ll take it as a sign that the millennial kids are doing all right. — Kate Andrews, columnist, millennial
“The Office” (2005-13)
Whenever I get up to stretch my legs on an airplane, I survey the screens of other passengers to see who has good taste. I almost always find someone rewatching an episode of “The Office.”
For me and my friends in high school and college, “The Office” was the show to watch. Its depiction of an ordinary paper company gave us a peek into what we suspected our parents’ days were like, and soon enough, maybe ours. We recognized versions of its exaggerated characters in people around us.
Once we did enter the workplace, we discovered there really are Michael Scott bosses and Dwight co-workers, and each of us has had a moment where we want to “Jim the camera.” We cringed and laughed at each character’s mishaps — but even if we thought Kelly was dramatic or Kevin oafish, we wanted the best for them in the end. Then, I saw the show as a telescope into the future. As I rewatch now, I realize that it’s more of a mirror of who I have become. — Timothy Wolff, senior multimedia producer, millennial
“The Sopranos” (1999-2007)
The thing about “The Sopranos” is that, well, it really did feel like real life.
Sure, there were mob hits, and dream sequences with talking fish, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t know anyone with Carmela’s nails. But the genius of the show was that it took one of the most oft-told stories in drama — the mafia life — and transposed it to the world the rest of us inhabited. Suburbs, McMansions, cellphones, video games, rap battles — the ugliness and chintziness of modern life turned out to be the perfect milieu for a mob drama.
Here was this big, powerful man who was helpless when dealing with his family and his own neuroses: Tony Soprano was so sharply drawn that he felt like a stand-in for everyone, even when he did monstrous things. We’ve all known a Meadow, and we’ve definitely all known an A.J. (He is totally into crypto now.)
The world of “The Sopranos” was America as I knew it and as I still do. It let me know the world I was about to walk into — and how much the country would need to, and ultimately fail to, fix. — Will Leitch, contributing columnist, Gen X
“Sex and the City” (1998-2004)
The ladies who brunch of “Sex and the City” are different from my Gen Z peers. Men wake them up through voicemail machine interludes, not the nightstand buzz of texts. Their salaries land them in spacious one-bedroom apartments, not in five-roommate pileups. But their chatter over coffee and omelets is remarkably similar to our Saturday morning gossip — and their names are now key to it.
Nineteenth-century Russians invoked Anna Karenina and Vronsky; our brunches float Carrie Bradshaw and Samantha Jones. The New York bachelorettes aren’t characters so much as old friends. When one of us mentions how she misses her awful ex-boyfriend despite her new seeming Mr. Right, a finger points at her with the accusation of “Carrie.” Another, a hopeless romantic pegged as the group’s Charlotte, asks, “Why can’t I be Samantha?” We laugh and cringe at the characters while we watch, yet we let them mold our lives and perceptions of each other.
Its characters may be a decade or two older than us and the show may be two decades in the past, but when my friends and I meet for Saturday morning coffee, “Sex and the City” remains our lingua franca. — Ashley Dowdney, fellow, Gen Z
“Twin Peaks” (1990-91)
“Twin Peaks” usually gets mentioned on lists like these but dismissed as something of a Roman candle firework — burning brightly and intensely, but briefly. Much of the nation spent 1990 obsessed with the show’s mystery — who killed Laura Palmer? — and lost interest when the perpetrator was caught in 1991.
Auteur filmmaker David Lynch and veteran TV writer Mark Frost created what felt like a continuous feature film on television: a quirky, unpredictable mash-up of a mystery detective series, prime-time soap opera, wacky humor, terrifying horror and surreal hints of the supernatural. Everyone from David Chase (creator of “The Sopranos”) to Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) to Matthew Weiner (“Mad Men”) to Alex Hirsch (“Gravity Falls”) has talked about how “Twin Peaks” showed what television storytelling could be.
After a prequel feature film that became a cult hit, Lynch and Frost thrilled fans by picking up the story 25 years later. That third season, which aired on Showtime in 2017, was about as far from a by-the-numbers reboot as you could get, spending considerable time away from the titular town. “Twin Peaks” opened the door to the modern era of prestige television. — Jim Geraghty, contributing columnist, Gen X
“The Cosby Show” (1984-92)
When I grew up in Detroit’s inner city in the 1980s during the crack and crime epidemic, the promise of a good life looked dim.
“The Cosby Show,” however, gave me, my friends and so many others hope. It featured a Black married professional couple with five kids living in a beautiful brownstone in Brooklyn. I didn’t even know what a brownstone was when I was 12. The mom, Clair Huxtable, was a quick-witted, successful attorney. The hilarious, loving but demanding dad was Cliff Huxtable, a doctor played by Bill Cosby. I am waiting for the moment to employ this classic Cliff line, delivered to his son Theo, on my kids: “I am your father. I brought you into this world, and I’ll take you out.”
The Huxtables defied stereotypes. They weren’t living in a cramped apartment in a struggling working-class neighborhood. The dad was present. Racial conflict was not a theme. Critics, however, have faulted the show for ignoring the economic inequalities faced by many Black families at the time.
Today, the program that topped Nielsen ratings for several years cannot be separated from Bill Cosby’s sexual assault scandal. Though the role model image has been shattered, the show’s legacy endures for my generation. It did more than make us laugh. It showed us what was possible. — Mizanur Rahman, senior editor, Gen X
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