Now that I’m back in the US, I’m pleased to see Friends being shown so often. TBS seems to have two hours just about every night, and other channels air it too. So I’m getting caught up a little.
Funny how these things can be tracked historically. I recall endless reruns of Lucille Ball’s various shows. Twenty or 30 years ago, it was MAS*H. Today it’s Friends, Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory.
i happened upon a complete series dvd set. it holds up pretty well. i like how they do a thanksgiving episode every year.
phoebe’s wedding was the best and prettiest. watching one after the other i noticed that chandler and richard had similar body language and an easy way with monica’s idiosyncrasies. the richard character fit in the best with the 6 out of all the outside love interests.
interesting how the show had 3 of the women who ended up on criminal minds.
This thread is over a year old, but that’s OK. 
Friends holds up amazingly well. My wife and I are watching through them on Netflix; and like Malcom in the Middle, it’s hard to find a bad episode.
I have to agree with Quimby, Lisa Kudrow is the best of the bunch by far. Her character Phoebe is hilarious and Kudrow pulls it off perfectly. Rachel in real life is… wow… not a nice person at all. I’ve never been a big Ross fan, except for when he’s a side character to the story line. The one exception is when HE WAS ON A BREAK! Everything else where he’s a whiny ass… no thank you. Where he shined was when he was just part of the conversation:
Joey: That’s how they do pants! First they go up one side, they move it over, then they go up the other side then they move it back, and then they do the rear. Ross, will you tell him. Isn’t that how a tailor measures pants?
Ross: Yes, yes it is… in prison!
Bumped.
Despite Phoebe’s likely angst, Pottery Barn now has a line of Friends stuff: https://www.potterybarn.com/shop/new/friends-tv-pottery-barn/
Wow, they really don’t give you the old-timey pricing for that apothecary table.
I’m surprised at the Friends positivity in this thread. I’m actually surprised two-fold. The first is that it’s so cool to hate Friends I’m surprised there are so many people (like me!) who genuinely like the show. The second is I’m surprised the people who do hate it are restrained enough to not threadshit.
I think she had a bit of a baby face early on but seemed to have a little more defined cheekbones later. Her voice I think matured and deepened a little over time. I think the quality of the show was pretty consistent over time. The biggest change that I see from early years to later ones is the girls’ fashions got a little less dressy and more casual. Ross and Phoebe didn’t change much in my opinion, Joey visibly aged during the show but I agree that it takes some talent to convincingly play someone that uneducated. He didn’t seem stupid, he just seemed like the guy who didn’t study at all. Chandler’s character perhaps evolved the most, he went from being a joke machine to being a little more complex.
Chandler’s appearance went downhill far more than Joey’s. Perry was having a lot of personal issues (and seems to still be not in a good place). It showed.
LeBlanc’s real acting abilities shine in Episodes where he nominally plays himself. But with amazing gusto and lack of self-awareness (most of the time).
But where is the bird cage? Where is the folding divider thingy?
You can’t even smell the opium.
“Misfits of Science” was a drama! A serious drama about people with bizarre powers working together to fight evil… in some way. In the first episode there’s a monster obsessed with Amelia Earhart, for some reason. There were other episodes with characteristics, too!
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is offering a series of Friends-based coffee drinks. Yesterday we tried the Phoebe, a cookies-and-cream frappe.
Ha! Thanks for the bump! Thanks to you bumping a thread that was almost 3 years old, I don’t have to be a thread killer… unless no one replies after this. Uh Oh. Is it possible to be a thread killer twice?
My favourite analysis of Friends courtesy of Lrr.
And the point of this is?
And to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Friends, 12 shows will be shown in movie theaters nationwide over three nights this fall.
For its time, certainly at the beginning anyway, Friends was exemplary without quite being ground-breaking. It had/has a lot of things going for it:
It’s interesting to compare it to Seinfeld, which was in many ways a more comedically edgy and adult, sophisticated show. Somehow, Friends seems to have aged better.