Modern-day TV viewers know not to get too attached to their favorite characters, considering how often death visits the small screen. But it was a different story in 1991, when the baby-boomer drama Thirtysomething shocked audiences with the death of Gary Shepherd, the charming literature professor played by Peter Horton, in Season 4’s “Second Look.”

It was a cruel twist of fate — especially because it seemed like Gary’s friend Nancy Weston (Patricia Wettig), another core member of the ensemble, was the one who was doomed. In fact, the day that episode aired, The Washington Post 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.