# Does anyone hate 'Friends' as much as I do?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 16, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762 "2018-08-16T23:54:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/1 "2018-08-16T23:54:34Z")
There are whole cable channels devoted to showing ‘Friends’ hour after hour, night after night, week after week. I have tried several times to watch this show, and I simply don’t GET it. I tried tonight. I loathe each and every one of them, I hate this show. I have tried. What am I missing? I think it’s a dumbass fairy tale of what life in NYC can be. I get that part. But I simply cannot watch it.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2018, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/2 "2018-08-16T23:58:16Z")
I can’t hate it, 'cause I’ve never seen a single second of it. And I intend to keep it that way. From what I hear about it, I would indeed hate it.
So, that’s close, I guess?
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### Author:  [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/3 "2018-08-17T00:00:48Z")
I’ve watched a few episodes. I can tell I’m not the target audience. So, don’t hate it, but it doesn’t interest me.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/4 "2018-08-17T00:02:39Z")
Hate it.
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/5 "2018-08-17T00:05:21Z")
its one of those shows that resonated with people at one point in time and now those same people watch if for nostalgia…….
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/6 "2018-08-17T00:10:12Z")
I can’t say I’ve ever watched an entire episode. There was no one in the cast that I cared that much about. (I did, however,really like Matt LeBlanc playing himself in _Episodes_)
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/7 "2018-08-17T00:13:32Z")
The Jennifer Aniston Show? Love it. I think other people were on the show also.
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### Author:  [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/8 "2018-08-17T00:21:16Z")
I quite liked it. It was a perfect show to watch, well, with friends! Plus, I was in my 20s and had my own apartment, yet they never quite looked like those on the show. I also liked 1990s sitcoms since they had moved away from the hit you over the head with the moral lesson style of the late 1970s and 1980s.
The show works well in reruns, since there aren’t complicated plots and you don’t need to focus 100%
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### Author:  [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/9 "2018-08-17T00:24:48Z")
Don’t like it.
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### Author:  [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/10 "2018-08-17T00:25:09Z")
I am a shallow, shallow man in many ways. That show demonstrates the depths of my shallowness (heh). I thought all three of the female leads were quite attractive, each in their own way. That was the main attraction (heh) of the show for me. There was some clever writing at times as well.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/11 "2018-08-17T00:28:41Z")
> [@salinqmind](#):
>
> There are whole cable channels devoted to showing ‘Friends’ hour after hour, night after night, week after week. I have tried several times to watch this show, and I simply don’t GET it. I tried tonight. I loathe each and every one of them, I hate this show. I have tried. What am I missing? I think it’s a dumbass fairy tale of what life in NYC can be. I get that part. But I simply cannot watch it.
It’s a fairy tale in the same way that the Disney version of _Cinderella_ is a romanticized version of a poor woman escaping ritualized child abuse into sexual servitude with an older and more powerful man. In fact, pretty much all of the Disney princesses are a collection of studies of the various causes of complex PTSD, save for maybe _Mulan_. Anyway, six obnoxious, narcissistic people who despite living in one of the world’s most diverse cities with all manner of culture, cuisine, et cetera, at their findertips and yet spending all of their time together insulting each other in either their ridiculously large (by central Manhattan standards) apartment or the apparently one available coffee shop in Midtown? They might as well be living in North Platte, NE. At least the assholes in _Seinfeld_ had interesting conversations about their pointless lives and self-created problems; these people might as well have been spittaking spackling paste at one another.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/12 "2018-08-17T00:46:26Z")
It was fine. I found it amusing at the time and can still be amused by an episode today. It was competently written situational comedy with a fairly competent cast. More than you get from most shows.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/13 "2018-08-17T00:46:29Z")
It’s a show that I think I tried my hardest to hate but ended up being somewhat entertaining. Not something I care to watch on the regular but it’s perfectly nice background noise, and when SO wants to binge watch it, I am secretly thankful because they are much worse choices.
Still waiting for Ross to eat the other Friends.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/14 "2018-08-17T00:51:01Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Still waiting for Ross to eat the other Friends.
Wouldn’t it be Monica eating the other friends?
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/15 "2018-08-17T01:40:39Z")
I think the only episode I watched in its entirety was the farewell episode. I always thought of that show as a Seinfeld ripoff, and could only manage about 5-10 seconds or so of the theme song before I killed it. My 2 thoughts about that show:
1. Jennifer Anniston, boy she sure is pretty.
2. The final episode ended with Jorma Kaukonen’s “Embryonic Journey” which was pretty cool.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/16 "2018-08-17T01:56:10Z")
I watched faithfully when it was first broadcast, and have caught many of the episodes multiple times in the past. I can’t much watch it any more because I want to bitch-slap every single one of the characters, including supporting characters, every time they open their mouths. I’m not sure what changed, exactly, but I find I have no patience for that kind of self-absorbed moronitude any more.
Pretty much the same way I feel about Will and Grace, except that it has aged even less well than Friends. I don’t think the problem is that they are set in NYC, because I can watch repeats of Barney Miller until I turn into a pumpkin, although I don’t like Harris or Dietrich as well as I used to.
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### Author:  [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/17 "2018-08-17T02:02:06Z")
One of my favorite exchanges. Monica is dating a friend and contemporary of her father. After keeping the relationship a secret the guy finally 'fesses up to Monica’s dad. Monica asks how that went. “It’s been a long time since your father and I went running…”
Sorry, that cracked me up and has stuck with me.
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### Author:  [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/18 "2018-08-17T02:19:14Z")
I didn’t watch the original run but had seen some reruns over the years and through cultural osmosis kind of knew the plot points. Then about a month ago I caught the pilot on one of the networks that plays it 5 or 6 times a day (TV Land I think). I decided to watch it. I’ve been recording it and binge watching before bed. I can watch each episode in about 15 minutes since I don’t have to pay a whole lot of attention. It’s been interesting to watch the cast change over the years and see 10 years worth of storylines compressed into a few weeks. I’m not a sitcom watcher so I don’t really have anything to compare it to. I’ve found it fairly entertaining and on occasion pretty funny. I think I’ve got about 2 more weeks until the end and I’ll be glad to be done with it. But I don’t think it’s been a total waste of time.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/19 "2018-08-17T02:38:50Z")
Yes! Though I’ve hardly ever watched it, but the few times I looked at it, it always struck me as an incompetent attempt to capitalize on the success of _Seinfeld_. _Seinfeld_ had its annoyances, especially when it became obnoxiously self-important once it got super popular, but some of the comedy was undeniably fresh and brilliant. To me, _Friends_ was just the annoyances and none of the wit.
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### Author:  [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-hate-friends-as-much-as-i-do/819762/20 "2018-08-17T02:46:33Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> I can’t hate it, 'cause I’ve never seen a single second of it.
I bow down to you sir.
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