It had some very funny episodes; the quiz show episode was a scream. Some people like to make themselves sound smart by calling popular things stupid. That’s just the way it is.
That said, any show has its highs and lows, and Friends did not end on a high note. The show’s funniest dynamic, by far, was Chandler and Joey living together, and the slapstick and play on them being like a married couple. The mid-series switch to having Chandler and Monica living together just didn’t work as well; they were difficult to buy as a couple, and it wasn’t funny. Then they tried a variety of roommates for Joey without any really good funny combinations.
They didn’t have to, but for those of us who lived in New York, Friends (and Seinfeld) were utterly obnoxious in their utter lack of any diversity. It’s just very hard to believe that every time they were at Central Perk, every time they ate at a restaurant or stood on a street, or when we saw their social events, Ross’s college classes, Phoebe’s massage clients, Rachel & Chandler’s co-workers and even Joey’s acting classes and TV/movie/play sets there were only a smattering of minorities, and they were all African American or east Asian-Americans. There were no Hispanics, no Carribean islanders, no Middle Easterners, no central Asians, it was just odd. New York doesn’t look like that and hasn’t looked like that in ages.
Suspension of disbelief is one thing, a show set in (one of?) the most diverse city in the U.S. (and perhaps the world) that couldn’t even bother hiring some extras of color from time to time is something completely different. It’s like they went out of their way to make sure that if a minority showed up, they were going to have at least a few lines so that the complaints about the whiteness of the Friends world would be quelled, when in fact it only reinforced the problem.
Ethilrist also hit on another problem. Over the years, shows with a core ensemble that don’t want to stagnate allow other people into the core. (See Everybody Loves Raymond, All in the Family and on the drama side, ER or The West Wing.) Even Seinfeld had recurring people who weren’t “in” the core but were never eventually shunted away from the core and the show itself because no one could ever get in, ever. (Newman, Peterman, Puddy) With Friends, every single outsider had a very short lifespan. The only one allowed permanance was the dude who married Phoebe, and that was what, 4 shows from the series end?
Stagnant people in stagnant situations, living in a weird alternate reality and repeating jokes from every sitcom from time immemorial. What’s the appeal supposed to be in that?
I feel much like Eve felt about it. Although that song being overplayed on the radio the first season certainly didn’t help.
I really didn’t like Ross. Here he is arguable the best educated and probably had the best job yet he is stuck with these losers who treat with at best contempt. He should have gone Postal at some point.
Huh. I don’t think I’ve watched it as much as most of the posters in this thread, precisely because it was so unfunny. What did I find so unfunny about it? I dunno, maybe the facts that the jokes didn’t make me laugh? I mean, I can’t think of a logical reason. The jokes were just really bland and boring, and none of the characters were likeable. The earlier episodes did, however, have the plus of including a monkey, who probably left when he realized that he was the best actor of the lot and they were paying him in bananas.
The actors in the show were quite appealing – but the show wasn’t. It was just dumb jokes and trite situations. I tried a lot of times to give it a chance, but couldn’t watch more than five minutes before getting bored.
In a way, it was the greatest waste of talent since Perfect Strangers (both Mark Linn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot were much much better than the show) and Laverne and Shirley (watch The Conversation and morn for Cindy Williams’s career). Lisa Kudrow is a dynamite actress (watch The Opposite of Sex) and Matthew Perry has solid comic chops (The Whole Nine Yards). And Jennifer Anniston has distinguished herself in a couple of films. Even David Schwimmer showed some real solid acting ability in his guest stint in NYPD Blue and was very good in Picking up the Pieces.
But on “Friends” – Blah. I think their acting ability got the most out of the weak scripts and dumb jokes.
What I never liked was how the writers would periodically throw in a completely ridiculous storyline when they couldn’t think of anything else for a certain character to do. Never worse than the “hand twin” debacle, and Ross never having enough time to get to class was nearly as bad.
“We were on a break!” became Friends’ equivalent to “Oh my god, they killed Kenny!” Went from boring to aggravating to unbearable. Whole damn stupid affair should’ve been wrapped up in 1/5 the time.
I don’t think they ever really nailed Phoebe’s personality. Admittedly, pulling off a naeve, eccentric ditz who isn’t a total moron and often knows things the other Friends don’t is tough to pull off, but she was really across the board. (For a glimps of the “total moron Phoebe”, check out the fire alarm incident.)
Still, it had its moments, and at its best, it was incredibly funny. Most of the resentment stems from the fact that so many people got so incredibly rich from inconsistent work. I’m not particularly upset.
I think you hit on it there. It was so enormously popular that people would go into it almost challenging it: “All right, so-called funny ‘Must-See TV’: Go ahead. MAKE me laugh.” Too much hype. The last episode is proof of that – NBC and everybody made such a huge deal out of it, and it was just a mediocre resolution to the series. But you hear people talk about it, and they talk as if it were the worst hour of television ever made.
The first season and a half were just hilarious, and episodes scattered throughout showed that they at least had a little bit of the spark. But as others have said, it was extremely inconsistent and repetitive, and a lot of people (including myself) just gave up on watching it. I know that there are several whole seasons that I just didn’t bother watching.
Because the jokes they tell didn’t make me laugh. Simple as that. I had the same problem with The Drew Carey Show. Nothing wrong with the show, except that I hardly laughed when I watched it, so I just stopped watching it. Contrast that with some episodes of The Simpsons, where I virtually never stop laughing.
Seconding SolGrundy: the first season and a half had some pretty good stuff.
I remember an early episode when, dissing on another character’s TV preferences, Chandler sarcastically said something like “Three’s Company? Oh, is it that episode where there’s a misunderstanding?” When it became true about Friends, I decidedly lost interest and stopped watching.
I bailied out after Ross and Rachel’s first falling-out and reconciliation, when it became obvious that their relationship on the show would continue like this for the duration. Smartest thing I ever did. This is one series that won’t find me purchasing any complete seasons. The occasional stray episode that my sister would spring on me might be good…say, the “alternate universe” one from a few years back, which was so good because they screwed with the form, right down to the opening montage. But stray episodes do not a devotion make.
I tried to watch Friends, but I couldn’t get into it. I had the same problem as some other Dopers here: the characters were shallow and whiney, and I just didn’t care about them.
I love Friends. Have all the DVD’s. I find most of it very funny. Some of it’s annoying, sure. But that’s the beauty of DVD, I can scan through the annoying stuff pretty fast.
I used to love it, then just liked it, then I think I just watched it out of habit. It did have it’s moments but the thing that bugged me most was character growth. I thought Rachel’s character is the one who went through the most change. Phoebe got a little less ditzy and always seemed to have some surprises. The others didn’t change much or actually changed for the worst, like Ross. But the most annoying to me was Monica. She became a cartoon. The “clean/control freak” thing became ridiculous, a real person like that would need some serious therapy. Her “I know!” became like fingernails on the blackboard for me. I just for the life of me could not buy Chandler falling in love with her, I could not understand why anyone liked her. If I had a friend like that I’d be brushing her off every chance I got.
I do occasionally watch the reruns for the episodes I did like but it’s not a show I’d be buying the DVD’s of, even if I won the lottery and had money to throw away.
I concur with those that said it was good early but then became crappy. Whenever you got every main character hooking up with every other main character, shows tend to go downhill. The show was called ‘Friends’ for heaven’s sake, not ‘Lovers’!
And yea, moving Chandler in with Monica, killed the whole Joey/Chandler dynamic and make Joey almost irrelevent. Bah!
That sums it up for me. I still like to catch reruns, but I’m not bothering to buy the DVDs. We were wandering around Best Buy a few months ago, and my husband picked up one of the sets of Friends and offered to buy it for me, but I had no interest in it at all. He kept saying, “But you liked it. Why don’t you want it?”
I couldn’t even explain it - I just didn’t want to spend the money for it. Yeah, I did like it, but I have zero interest in spending money for the shows.
I was never a fan of this show. From the few times I watched it appeared to me that the cast was a bunch of mildly retarded people, living in some kind of group home.
The acting was pretty poor, and the humor was pathetic.
The show was crap. I won’t miss it.
Actually, I want to change my answer now. Now that I think about it, not only was the show just not funny, but I didn’t like the characters either. They seemed more like caricatures than characters.