I thought that maybe it happened when Rachel got pregnant. But I watched an episode or two, and thought, “naah.” Then it was the whole “Joey falls in loved with Rachel” subplot. The sheer idiocy of Rachel, a successful professional, even considering having anything to do with a part-time actor whose life has not advanced appreciably in a decade seemed like a clincher. But no.
No, the final, absolute last straw was the whole “Rachel kisses some other guy and now she and Ross are through” crap. I mean, didn’t we see pretty much the same shit from these two back in, oh, 1997? I mean JEEZUS! Get a fucking grip, you guys! I can’t believe any of their other so-called “friends” hasn’t simply had enough and told them to take their dysfunctional bullshit and cram it.
That’s it. My “stupid crap” quotient is now full. I will probably not watch another new episode of this show. I just can’t stomach the Idiot Plot anymore. And it used to be one of my favorite shows.
I agree it’s gone downhill a bit. It was very warm and funny, but the actors are beginning to show their age.
I’ll hang around until it’s off the air, though, because it did have a good track record, and I still see gems in some of the shows.
Although I was disappointed when they were supposed to show Scrubs last week and instead they showed a rerun of Friends, where everyone showed up late to Phoebe’s birthday dinner. After everything they’ve been together, you’d think they could have at least called and let her know they were running late. I think they all have cell phones now.
The show jumped the shark, officially, when Chandler and Monica moved in together. It was
A transparent effort to create the same fun as the Ross-Rachel romance, but the pairing of Chandler and Monica is far less entertaining and was really forced, and
Devastating to the show’s best source of humor; Joey and Chandler living together.
Hasn’t the phrase “jumped the shark” jumped the shark?
I think all shows, after time, start to show age - and it’s not like the premise of the show was about European political upheavel in the 30’s. It’s about six friends who hang out at a cafe and live in nice places they shouldn’t realistically be able to afford. Stupid, mindless plots with six well-developed characters - nice formula. Has worked this long, it’ll work another season.
And besides, even I Love Lucy got kinda predictable at the end of its first season, but if I’m not mistaken, nobody minded.
Don’t know if I’d agree with point 1. I always thought from the beginning that there was some sparkage between Chandler and Monica on a very subdued level. It didn’t seem all that implausible that they might hook up.
One of the show’s strengths over the years was its ability to mix up the characters and still produce entertaining storylines. If you had three stories/ ep, you could take any two of them and pair them off for an entertaining story. That ability doesn’t seem to be there anymore. The characters themselves have also become less interesting and more erratic. The writing of Ross, in particular, has really been aggravating. Compare the Ross of Season 1 to the current incarnation, and you wouldn’t know that they’re the same character. Ross of the early days was basically Charlie Brown with a Ph.D. You kind of rooted for him and Rachel because he was sweet and Rachel was oblivious. But that’s gone now, and the hostility to a renewed Ross/ Rachel pairing stems, at least on my part, from the fact that the guy we were rooting for is not who they’ve been showing the last 3-4 seasons at least.
They’ve also fished in the pregnancy well far too often for a show that was supposed to be about young single people. Pregnancy-related storylines ran through at least three seasons worth of storylines (that’s like 1/3 of the show). That’s an awful lot. And now there’s a baby, so we have baby-related storylines. Which tend to be less entertaining.
I used to love this show. They had so many good ideas, like Joey dancing with Treeger but they just aren’t nearly as creative as they used to be. Something that I’ve noticed in Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Spongebob Squarepants, Rugrats, … man I had a ton of these a few weeks ago when I was considering it for a thread topic. That is it starts out as really interesting and refreshing eases into absolute brilliance and then fades back into either adequatacism or at worst clichéd and uninteresting.
Friends still puts up some good funny episodes like where they watched the tape of Ross & Rachel but about half the time I have to turn the channel because they do something so annoying I can’t stand it. Especially with relationships. Like Phoebe when that scientist she knew from the first season returned, I saw that a mile away. Why? Why Phoebe? Have you learned nothing in the past 9 years? Rachel does this too. And Ross does it all the freaking time! Makes me want to line them up and slap them all at once until they realize that talking things out will often solve there problem in 5 minutes leaving the other 17 minutes for comedy hijinks.
To me, you can’t have enough of Janice. I wish they’d write a few episodes with her showing back up. It would be kind of tough though, now that Chandler is married. I also think there’s some comedy material in Joey’s sisters. I’m surprised they never persued that further. Finally, they could bring back in Phoebe’s evil twin sister for a couple of episodes. I think any of those ideas would be better than the retreads they’ve been coming up with. I for one NEVER enjoyed ANY of the Ross & Rachel stories. I actually liked the British chick episodes. I’d rather see them back together than with the selfish bitch Rachel.