I love Friends. Never got to watch it until we moved back to the US five years ago. Well, we did watch one episode, in our hotel room in Kuala Lumpur one afternoon while resting before heading out for the evening. That was in 1996. The TV set literally exploded that night, and the hotel did not have a replacement set. So one episode in 1996, then nothing else until 2016. Still watch it most nights. I just don’t get the haters.
It was occasionally brilliant, especially when they stole the Seinfeld trope of presenting selfishness and pettiness as attractive qualities. Usually, sitcom couples get less interesting after they get married. Chandler and Monica defied this expectation:
MONICA Is everything funny to you? Everything you say comes out like a joke.
CHANDLER Well, what about you? You’re always asking me questions. It’s like I’m dating the Riddler!
MONICA Was that a joke?
CHANDLER Was that a question?
They were a perfectly matched mismatch. Sometimes the show exceeded “comfort comedy.”
Not that it matters all that much. but the wife reminds me that was in 1999, not 1996. That was the year we stayed in the railroad-station hotel so we could roll out of bed and hop the train down to Singapore. That was where the TV blew up, and it was 1999.
To clarify, I do not hate the show Friends. I think the plots are clever, and the female characters gorgeous. But I do not truly understand its lack of subtlety, which can cloy.