It is confusing, but in several places (including the SDMB) I’ve seen the phrase “hard-on” used to mean an irrational dislike of someone or something. I guess it’s like “F-ck you!” If you didn’t know the idiom, it sounds like you’re wishing someone well.
One thing that I always thought was off base was Ross’s defensiveness about having a PhD rather than an MD. It’s not as if everyone goes to college trying to be an MD, and then the less than adequate ones have to settle for a PhD. Ross pursued his dream and wound up working in exactly the field he’d dreamed of working in all his life. I just can’t see him feeling jealous about someone with an MD.
The best I can come up with is that Rachel was completely oblivious to the distinction, and her daddy was an MD. So Rachel would have falsely posed Ross and her dad as being in competition, and daddy winning.
I got the sense in lots of episodes that Ross really didn’t like Phoebe very much, but out of a sense of camaraderie didn’t unleash his true feelings.
There was the Hanukkah armadillo episode, and after Emma was born, and Ross & Monica’s parents were cooing about “our first grandchild” Ross said something like “What about Ben?”
But that was pretty much it. He was a disappearing tv child.
I’ve actually met people who get up in arms about this. PhD’s say that MD’s aren’t real doctors, because they haven’t usually done original research or made any discoveries that push back the boundries of knowledge. MD’s say that PhD’s aren’t real doctors because they usually don’t know medicine. Then theologians chip in with the comment that DD’s are the only real doctors, and the other two have usurped the title. It can get quite ugly.
As for Phoebe, she’s a manipulative b++++. She knows just how to play people. The dumb blonde routine is an act. The evolution argument woukldn’t have worked on the dope, but worked on Ross because she knows how to push his buttons.
I think this is a bit harsh, especially considering that Ross was the non-custodial parent. By TV standards, Ben was downright ubiquitous. Emma, on the other hand…after Rachel went back to work, Emma was always “being watched by her grandmother”.
The classic DTVC was Murphy Brown’s.
I agree with Exapno Mapcase about the Ross-Phoebe evolution debate. I would add that Phobe probably thought Ross was being dogmatic (something that he shouldn’t be, if he’s faithful to the scientific method) and decided to take him down a peg or two. Once he conceded he could be wrong about evolution, she pounced.
As to Joey and Phoebe ever hooking up, the big coffee-table volume which came out just after the season finale (Friends for a Decade, or the like?) includes some interesting interviews with the producers and writers. They admit that they considered having J&P become a couple, and even came close to revealing that J&P had been “fuck buddies” for many years, but never could figure out how to make it work.