WHAT? I missed that part! Who was Mark? Hilarious!
This episode got HUGE ratings…if I am not mistaken, I think I read it got the largest audience an episode of Friends has ever had.
But wait until next season! You thought Seinfeld had hype?
Ha! They are already selling advertising for the final one hour episode…$2 million for a 30 second commercial. I think even die-hard fans are going to be throwing up with all the Friends finale hype.
Just a guess:
All of them on Oprah.
All of them with a Barbara Walters special.
Multiple weeks of covers on everything from People, ET, Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, TV Guide…etc. etc. etc.
Advertising tie-in’s with multiple corporations.
Some huge scandal about one or more of the cast.
An after-Friends special.
Scoops on the supposed finale episode.
And I predict the ratings will easily surpass those of the final episode of MASH.
Predictable. Extremely predictable.
They telegraphed things so intensely, why even bother?
The writers could stand to have some lessons in building tension and in crafting a story so it isn’t so BLOODY obvious.
I agreed with all but this one. I think the diversity of cable tv has made this one all but unbreakable.
{minor pet peeve here} I wish people would stop comparing statistics from 20 years ago with today - for example, there are how many millions more people in the world today than when MASH hit its high note, and how many millions more tv sets and cable hookups? People keep on comparing statistics like this, and it’s really a case of comparing apples with oranges. Now, compare the percentages of viewers for the shows over the entire population, and we might have a statistic that actually means something. {/minor peeve}
I have been forced by late classes for the past TWO SEMESTERS to miss every freakin’ episode of Friends, and finally the semester is over and I see the last 20 minutes of the finale.
Had no idea who Charley was, but figured out quickly that she was with Joey and wanted to be with Ross. shrug
Had no idea Rachel had developed a thing for Joey but got a big ol’ grin on my face when I found out. I used to be all about Ross & Rachel, but it seems to me that Ross has changed pretty dramatically since the good old days–he’s a lot more rude and arrogant and peevish than he used to be. When he first had a crush on Rachel he was a sweet, shy, unassuming dork; now he’s mostly just irritable and cocky (while still managing to be dorky) and when he tries to be sweet, he just comes off as a pansy. He’s definitely my least favorite Friend now, whereas Joey is just as stupidly funny as he’s always been, and Rachel just as stupidly pretty as she’s always been. Thus, go Joe. =)
This actually makes what MASH did MORE impressive! There far were fewer PEOPLE back then and it still drew more ACTUAL viewers than any original entertainment program ever.
Even 20 years later, it can’t be caught. Seinfeld, Friends, none of them will catch MASH. The actual TOTAL VIEWERS record may fall someday if the population reaches a point where 30% of the total sets equals MASH’s numbers, but I doubt the share (I think that is the right term for % of set IN USE. I alway confuse ratings and share. It would make sense that share was the number of sets in use, I suppose.) record will ever be broken.
As I said, cable TV offers too many choices.