i can’t seem to be able to watch any of the old sitcoms anymore. i’m in my sixties now, but The Office, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock seem to have moved us past the previous comedy formulas
4
Seinfeld was a show for adults. It made selfish and narcissistic people appear funny. Seinfeld was just as George and Jerry pitched there own show -- a show about nothing.
Characters got wound up about nothing and offended over nothing and gloated and laughed about what they perceived as their own superiority. They doubled down on false narratives when they were wrong and lied to extricate themselves from problems of their own creation.
Trump is now the new Seinfeld.
I still watch some episodes of Seinfeld mainly because the the characters were funny. But when the show is over, I am left with disgust. Seinfeld was the prequel to the "real show about nothing" that is even more disgusting -- Donald Trump.
I feel like I’ve entered some kind of alternate universe when reading these adulatory articles and comments about ‘Friends’. The truth is it always seemed simple and kind of low-rent base comedy, performed by actors who are mediocre at best. The jokes were stupid, the situations childish, and the execution painful to watch at times. To test my recollection of this show, I cued up 4 episodes from its 10 year run. They’re all as painful to watch now ( maybe more so) than they were at the time. And I was a white urban professional in my 20s when this show was on, so it’s not like I was under some fantasy spell about the past or being a grown-up.
‘Friends’ represents to me the last, blessedly final gasp of the mainstream network sitcom. If we’re in peak TV now, consider me thrilled that I can now watch shows that don’t demean my intelligence or foist lowest-common-denominator “entertainment” on me. Am I a snob? Probably. But that fact still doesn’t make ‘Friends’ a good show, or one that should commemorated.
And while I’m at it, I’m kinda ashamed that the NYT published not one but FOUR stories about it. More clickbait I gather.
8
Wow was expecting a lot of love in the comments for Friends but most echo my own sentiments that the show was kind of blah. To me, Friends is the equivalent of kraft Mac n cheese or instant mashed potatoes. Convenient, easy to consume and tasty but kind of basic and unchallenging.
I never really loved the show but it was impactful and I watched it pretty regularly as part of Must See TV. I kind of dropped off in later seasons and never caught up. I think it was weirdly ahead of its time with dealing with homosexuality on a major tv show. It was clunky and kind of insensitive but at least the issue was not ignored. The race issue is less excusable in the mid 90s. Especially in the diverse city of New York for all the characters to be white.
Maybe it’s current popularity shows a lack of quality mindless comfort watching in today’s modern tv streaming days. I am not watching it on Netflix but have gone back to watch a couple old sitcoms. There is something appealing about the format.
3
I only find the show interesting these days as a sort of time capsule for the casual prejudice of affluent white people in 90s New York. Virtually no black characters. Horrifically anti-gay -especially in the case of Chandler Bing, whose father in the series is supposedly transgender and is constantly either made into a punchline or a sort of shameful specter that hangs over his sons life and seems to contribute to the characters own thinly-veiled latency and self-loathing. And, on the whole, the lead characters are frighteningly hetero-normative and square when it comes to anything they deem even remotely out of the ordinary....Rachel is a horrific condescending snob, Monica is a anal retentive control freak, Ross is an ivory tower academic snob and Joey is a misogynist. Only Phoebe is marginally redeemed as someone who has lived through hardships, but that is almost negated by her holier-than-thou veganism and snowflake status when it comes to, well, almost everything she disagrees with. On the whole, the whole group comes off as spoiled, square and out-of-touch. No wonder Middle America loves them.
3
Ummm, give me a break NYT. This ‘analysis’ is not worthy of publication in the gray lady.
Ross seemed like a geek because his paleontology was frequently mocked and there’s something gluey in the music of David Schwimmer’s whine...
Truer words have never been spoken. Happy to be in NYT company.
1
On the downside, FRIENDS spawned a generation of cutesy copycat actors who, uh, twitch, pause, mmmm, you know, wink, mug their lines. You see them in other sitcoms. You see them in movies. I can't stand them. And, let's face it, FRIENDS was no SEINFELD ... not by a long shot.
4
Except for those of us who never started watching it.
2
I sing you the song of the WRITERS and DIRECTORS as well as the phenomenal cast. First there is the word .... And the scripts reveal the human comedy as profoundly as Chekov did in his time. Oh, if the walls on that Writers' Room could speak. They tapped the foibles of family relationships, fools in love, PREGNANCY. I tip my hat!
1
I’m sorry, I never enjoyed Friends. The recipe for comedy, to me has been a maximum of four protagonists. The Honeymooners- two couples, the Flintstones, and of course Seinfeld. In 22 minutes, characters get more lines, more depth, more laughs.
Sorry Friends, you’re no pal of mine.
BK
4
"Here's why WE can't stop watching it" ? Speak for yourself. I always found this show contrived, derivative, repetitive, inane and unfunny.
5
A terrible show, both the writing and the actors predictable and contrived, so much so that I never could last more than a few minutes.
Mini skits laced with the most obvious punch lines masquerading as story arcs and character development...the dumb guy routine....the airhead blond...pretty girl problems vs ugly duckling dilemmas... over-acted and hamfisted performances...
But hey they all look good...I guess that's something, apparently even enough for TV audiences.
4
The show wouldn't work today. If you tried to create this show again. If you had six people living together they would spend their together with heads buried in their I - Phones, rather than riffing & interacting with each other.
5
I haven't seen the show since it's original run. (And back then, in my teenage years, I watched it religiously.)
I don't know what my reaction would be on a re-watch... I know it's on Netflix, but my list of "Shows to Watch Someday" is quite long already.
I do know that I'm really glad I read this article.
(Not so much the comments though.)
2
Started watching in 2003 when I was 24. Rued the day it ended and Yes it did help me with english. A lot. So much so that I don’t look for subtitles for english content. Now could I ‘BE’ more frank?
Thank you for such a lovely write up and thank you to everyone associated with the series. 4 claps!
3
Ok - I read a lot about how "white-washed" and "straight" this sitcom was, and I mostly agree. But some food for thought: Ross' ex-wife (the first one), and the entire complex relationship dynamic with ex-wife, life partner, and shared son. Ross' girlfriend at the beginning of Season 2. Season 2's "The One with the Lesbian Wedding". And has anyone ever noticed that many, many times over the 10 seasons, when there was an opportunity for a person of authority or influence to enter the scene, that person was often a person of color and in a role that surpassed the maturity of the main characters? Doctors, lawyers, store managers, librarians, hiring officials, work colleagues, etc., etc. It's subtle, but it's there.
6
The following of fans for Friends exposes only the emptiness at the heart of young adults today. When compared to the brilliant and outstanding TV shows like Cheers, Taxi, Seinfeld, the Friends series pales; like soggy white bread.
It reveals the emptiness of its fans whose primary grip on pleasure resides in their cell phones wherein even at restaurants they lunch or supper individually while texting.
Friens is their go-to as one would drop in on a neighbor to share some relax time after work and a glass of wine.
We have defnitely defined comedy downward. But then, like sheep we embracce what we are told as we did for over fifty years with the film Citizen Kane; the most boring movie ever filmed. It is only recently knocked off the number one spot and exposed for its tireless numbing story. Friends, like Citizen Kane is a series hyped and promoted without any evidence that it competes with our history of great comedic series. Sometimes Trump's fake news assault makes sense.
this is my favorite show number one. I have seen it over and over again. Cant get enough. its so well done. Thoes who have written this did see people in the way that everyone see us, as peoples and humans. there for this is so popular. and the acting: the more i see the episodes over and over again, i see how well the acting are. The body language of acting is so well. And there for its so recognizable for all of us. simple comedy on situations we all can recognize. world wide because its about us as humans. no tv series at all time acsept fpr these one have show us these way of comedies and acting. Friends will become a favorite for many people in long future. And i love it. :-)
2
Have only read around 100 of the 540 comments but am struck by the number who only want to underline that they are much too sophisticated to enjoy Friends.
If you prefer Seinfeld, that's fine: why not? Personally, I've seen a few episodes which didn't move me at all but I accept that's just me. But why feel the need to knock the most successful (as I understand it) comedy of its time? Because it's successful so must have sold out?
Certainly, some of the attitudes displayed then would not work in comedy now, but to take the most flagrant example, the homophobia (literally - Chandler is afraid of being taken for gay) is used (as I see it) to laugh at the characters and never at gay people. Yes, the economic situation of the characters is very unrealistic but ... it was a comedy not a social documentary. I remember the decision was taken NOT to refer to 9-11 because the writers (and others presumably) felt that a comedy should not be carrying that burden. But it was funny, and many viewers - clearly not all - got a lot from it, so I really don't understand the 'more sensible than thou' attitude of many commenters.
9
I live in Phoenix born in Detroit 77 years ago ain't figured out tv Friends yet then again I am Black.
5
Imagine a show where all the main characters are straight white people. Nobody is gay or in the country illegally. No student loan debt, nobody is overweight and/or "body positive." This era is as extinct as the dinosaurs Ross studies.
2
Friends wasn’t diverse. But don’t pretend Seinfeld was. Both shows were about a white washed version of NYC with all of its privileges and fantasy privileges.
7
I grew up with FRIENDS, still find it fresh and funny and continue to watch it on Netflix. The comedy is universal and the casting was evergreen.
5
Most television wasn't groundbreaking, it was the opiate of the masses; most sit-coms weren't riotous, they're archetypal, often anachronistic conflicts simplified for the masses' digestion in the context of their times.
Maybe once a year a comedy debuted that actually won the heart; half the time it didn't last more than three or four years. By the '90s series had even shorter shelf-lives, My So-Called Life cancelled half a season in, Arrested Development (originally) after three increasingly shorter seasons. SNL's going on 45 while in the U.S. SCTV aired two years and Kids In The Hall five.
Moonlighting's first season was a then-unheard-of six episodes. For all our memories of water-cooler moments it averaged 13. That's 1/3 a Honeymooners, even if in line with an Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or Barry.
In the pre-binge era, ad-driven networks meted out consistency.
Darrin on Bewitched, Rhoda & Phyllis on MTM, Richie on Happy Days, phenomenal Jill & central Sabrina on Charlie's Angels or lovable Chrissy & bickering Ropers on Three's Company, jarring cast departures can devalue later episodes; for every fresh Cheryl Ladd or vintage Don Knotts, many replacements' chemistry threw the dynamic and grated on viewers while spin-offs (The Tortellis?) lacked the interactions that charmed in the first place.
We believed the core group as titular Friends, they stuck it out 10 years with just enough growth not to throw the dynamic. It grew on me. But give me another look at 30 Rock!
3
I pretty much threw up in my mouth a little bit the first time I heard Friends described as "problematic." It was just yet more confirmation that we have reached absolute lunacy when it comes to trying to force everything - including works decades or even centuries old- to be viewed through the oppressive lens of our current political correctness.
There are a lot of reaons I loved Friends when it was first on and why I regularly re-watch it now, and this article touches on many of them, but these days one of the biggest reasons is that it is so completely refreshing to see a show where the writers aren't tiptoeing around trying to avoid writing a line that might conceivably be found offensive by anyone ever. In other words, its lack of political correctness is not only NOT "problematic," but these days it's actually one of the best things about the show.
14
Remarkably put!
2
The show ‘Friends’ is proof that one should never equate popular entertainment with quality entertainment.
7
I can stop watching Friends. I did so during episode one when the Ross character opened his mouth and spoke. I turned the channel to and discovered My So called Life. The wrong show was cancelled after their first season.
5
Personally, I don't get what all the fuss is about. I have seen about five or six episodes and I have no burning desire whatsoever to watch any more.
6
I felt a tinge of envy then. I did not have attractive, funny, loyal, honest, goofball friends as shown on the program. I do recall people speaking of the characters on the show as if they were friends with them in real life. I guess there was some (only some) connection between the latchkey generation and the central premise of this program: friends matter.
1
Nicely written. I remember reading that Friends was the least, or one of the least, watched shows among African Americans. That sense of coziness and familiarity that attracted Morris was not shared by many fellow black viewers, nor was it shared by me, a middle aged white male.
5
Pivot!
5
The main problem for me has always the character of Ross, or perhaps it was just the actor who played him. Ross is supremely annoying. He’s immature, selfish, and goofy. He’s cast as a romantic figure vis-a-vis Rachel, but he’s not sexy! Not even close. And he really has nothing to offer her except that he has a crush on her as an unattainable object. His intelligence doesn’t really seem to inform his character and so ends up being a running joke, which is also a problem. The final scene where Rachel gives up her career dreams in response to his selfish, pathetic whining is sooooooo disappointing.
2
@Fran
I might not go as far in my criticism of his character, but I agree, across the swathe of a decade of interaction between the characters, his seems the most problematic in terms of development. It’s almost as if the writers couldn’t reach a consensus on where they wanted to take him, so they split the difference, sometimes quasi-mature with empathy and understanding, then swinging back to petulant adolescent selfishness. It can be cringe-inducing. The only thing that saved him, in my view, was Schwimmer’s ability to reach for slapstick humor with Ross.
1
@Fran - Right, because money and prestige are so much more important than love, or the fundamental right of everyone to chooose what they value. Why should Rachel's character have to make choices in alignment with what YOU think should be more important? That seems like a very insulting attitude to take towards women in general - to not respect their own sense of agency and ability to choose what's right for them.
2
Ok, so why didn’t Ross give up his job for her?
3
I noted how I always knew Ross, Monica, and Rachel were Jewish but the show, far as I remember, never explicitly said so. Was it just their names? Or something dangerously subliminal?
2
@Fran "Ok, so why didn’t Ross give up his job for her?"
One word answer: Ben. We heard, at excruciating length, how Ross could never leave New York for London and Emily, so obviously the same would apply for Paris (if memory serves) and Rachel.
@Uxf "Never explicitly said [R, M & R} were Jewish"
Apart from the episode when Ross tries to explain Hanukkah to Ben, complete with Dinosaur! I think there were other mentions as well, but it was never a big deal for that group. Incidentally, it never occurred to me that Rachel was Jewish: I always thought of her as a WASP princess, but you're probably right.
1
Calm down. Ross and Monica made references to their bar/bat mitzvahs. Even made jokes about it.
3
Why is the pilot episode (apparently) not readily available? I was going to dip my toe in but would like to start with 'the one that started it all'.
h
3
First The Gap (leading the Mall-ification) came to Manhattan. Then the comfortable-as-old-slippers "Friends".
There was NYC before the mid-90s, and there is this one.
There are so many reasons why Friends continues to endure and why people in their 20s love this show. It's smart, it's extremely well written and funny, it's like a good hug. The characters grow and change overtime. The people on the show love and care for each other as real friends do - people actually want friends like this. They are generally not mean to each other. They don't lie to each other. Let me repeat that: there is no meanness - find another show without mean people. They make mistakes, they apologize. It's grounded by relationships between people who behave as if they are adults trying hard. I know 25 year old guys who love this show.
I tried watching children's shows on Netflix's during summer break with my nieces. The nastiness, lying and meanness was overwhelming, especially in shows built for kids. Especially the portrayals of females - there is always a mean girl who has to get her comeuppance.
11
Excellent article. I've marveled at how my 13 and 15 year old daughters binge on Friends. But, wow, Wesley Morris knows a whole lot more about television history than I do.
3
Something not discussed but worthy of note is the meticulous HD upconvert from the original film negatives, lovingly re-edited to the original soundtrack. People like my kids who are HUGE Friends fans don't realize this show came out before HDTV. I'm amazed myself with the quality and hidden details revealed with the remastering. It's a whole new show for me.
2
What an awesome responsibility Morris has, sifting our culture, finding the meaning in things we overlook, forcing us to slow down and observe our surroundings.
4
Watched it a couple of times first season. That was it. Glad Lisa Kudrow made a lot of money, though.
2
I live in Paris and I am AMAZED at how Parisians have learned English simply from watching this show. Anyone I meet who speaks English well, always credits Friends for picking up the language!
34
@Jdubbs could I be any more surprised?
3
It goes both ways! I credit watching Friends in France with helping me improve my French and pick up a colloquial vocabulary.
2
Still sounds like a snooze. Didn't watch it. The writer seemed to have died and gone to Heaven over it. Man, that's a lot of time and energy burned over a trifle!
3
What I remember most about Friends, and every other show made during that era--and before it--was the idea of at least 24 episodes per season. Then, waiting only three summer months for the new season to begin. Today? 8 episodes. Maybe 10 if we're lucky, every 2 years.
6
Oh please. This was a jokey unfunny cobbled together replacement for "Seinfeld" on NBC's Thursday night lineup, after all the money in the world couldn't coax the masterful Seinfeld back for another season. With a tedious, obnoxious cast of focused group stock characters, inhabiting a notoriously unreal universe. A testament to declining tastes that fell into a market segment of silly people with no taste, persuaded by mass promotion that continues to this day. Only something this bad could elevate the Seinfeld legend by comparison.
1
@Edwin - Friends and Seinfeld were on the air together for years. One didn't replace the other.
3
@Edwin I'm really amazed at the incoherent hatred for this show. It seems to blind people to simple facts, like the fact that Friends did not replace Seinfeld—they aired together in the same Thursday night "Must See TV" bloc for 4 seasons.
It's okay to dislike the show, but can we please get the facts straight instead of making up stories à la Trump?
5
He can’t hear you; he’s way up high on his horse.
2
So, Friends "had one of the best casts in TV history"?! Oy Vey!
4
Thank you for pointing out that male/female relationships were much better in the 90s! Feminism really took a nosedive after that.
2
You can't really judge a 90s show with today's perspective, can you. A lot has change in our cultural landscape. If you think Friends is racist and sexist, what do you make of The Big Bang Theory? It survives 12 seasons!
1
I'll never understand why people watch and like garbage like this. Pablum for the ignorant masses I assume.
1
@Sparky - the article gave me hundreds of words explaining why I should watch. You gave one word why not to: "garbage." I'll process that.
2
Friends is the reason so many millennials are angry at the world because they do not understand why they, too, can't afford a beautiful 2 bedroom Greenwich Village apartment on a coffee baristas wages.
So, they just blame the Baby Boomers.
3
Can't stop watching it? I could barely even start watching it. Despite being the in the same age bracket as the "Friends", I didn’t relate to the conventional story arcs, goofy laugh track, and ludicrous plots (Phoebe is paid to make a music video about a song she wrote entitled 'Smelly Cat', and if you think the title is bad, wait until you hear the lyrics: "One, two, what's that smell? Smelly Cat what are they feeding you?"). The situations and fantasies of perpetually deferred adulthood were terribly contrived, the uninformed privilege was frequently offensive, and the show wasn't very funny, often relying on stereotyped behaviors. Like any TV show that wasn't a classic, it firmly belongs in the era in which it was conceived, and it’s correct not to attempt a revival.
8
My wife and kids always like it and still watch it regularly. I never thought it was funny. Someone elks in the room and the laughtrack explodes in laughter. Why? Monica and Chandler were an incredibly boring couple. And there was no way Rachel would ever go out with Ross except as a favor to Monica. Smelly Cat is annoying. Joey is the only one who could bring a chuckle
3
Never watched a single episode, either when the show was in first broadcast, or in syndication or now on "streaming" TV. The few previews and clips I ran into over the years showed a narrow view of life as seen by a homogeneous group of people with whom I had absolutely nothing in common (though having something in common with the characters is certainly not the only criteria for choosing to watch a show). I still don't feel I've missed out on anything.
1
My mother told me to watch it in the 90’s, as it reminded her of my sister and me. Hated it, I was a twenty something in Seattle, living a “similar life”. Could not relate on any level. Really really bad.
5
Watched one episode. Sexist and culturally deaf; never fun watching the over-privileged exercising their superiority. Never watched it again, even though I am of the demographic it is supposed to interest.
5
@fireweed
Good Lord... it was a half hour comedy series, that was designed to entertain people... nothing more. And it did just that for many... myself included.
But congratulations on getting thru the one episode... I'm sure your recovery from watching the "Sexist, culturally deaf and over-privileged exercising their superiority" must have been long and painful.
2
Judd Apatow is indeed the ruination of comedy. A curse on his boy's club.
5
I expect a great deal of this "popularity" of Friends is the product of deliberate marketing to squeeze out every dollar from a program that is all profit now. Even articles like this are part of the marketing.
4
Oh oh protests will get u nowhere it was fun while it lasted they were all cute to look at but I like Jessica and her circle of colleagues and kids and frankly I do believe DIVORCE is far more amusing to watch and empathize here and there if u are weathered like me and went thru 1 divorce that was almost and sometimes better then theirs... I think MADAM SECRETARY beats the friends- the kids are far more savvy then any friends and YOUNGER —- my son had good reason to prefer other showes of those times, as he became a writer... sorry dudes I LOVE LUCY is still my fav. Some of the FRIENDS lifestyles as depicted are really insipid- I hope that’s a word they made millions let them move on! But me thinks they never quite surpassed the lifestyles or life plans etc depicted on the show except for ANISTAN! Such a fine actress, and would likely have been a fine and cheerful mom, if fate had taken her that route... I am always sad to see some of those actors trying to branch out into newprograms on TV- it don’t work they are just too identified with FRIENDS! Sorry. MOVE ON, we all must!
“Jessica” who?
2
I can stop watching it. It feels so outdated, from a time to which I don't want to return.
5
I can, and have, stopped watching it. As Gen X, I can say for the most part that this show never represented me
7
Friends didn't pass the three-minute test in our household. However, we're a sample size of two, so we're never surprised if a show we don't care for has a large following - there are many of those, and always have been.
Seinfeld we enjoyed tremendously, and we've assumed liking that show and not having gotten hooked by Friends was a generational thing.
6
Just who can't stop watching it? Saw some episodes, but never found it interesting or funny.
8
I've never watched a full episode of this show and can't imagine why anyone would want to do.
6
Geez, even Seinfeld is getting old and dated and trite and infinitely repetitive, and I'm done with it.
Friends? It always was those things, and so I never even started.
Maybe it's time to move on...
3
I mostly thought it was a mediocre show back in the day. Not the funniest or the smartest, both of which were clearly Seinfeld.
In the last few years, I have caught a few episodes and what strikes me the most is how cheap and formulaic it was. I mean it's an old show but the sets and visual look of other sitcoms have held up better. Musical transitions are cheesy, a lot of the jokes aren't very funny.
With shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or Frasier, I'm not sure why people would waste their time watching Friends.
6
Please, fewer shows set in NYC (or CA, for that matter). There are interesting stories to be told in each of 50 states. How about some locational diversity?
5
I know it's incredibly problematic, its constant harping on male "gayness" as a state to be dreaded is near-repellent, they are all spectacularly white, and unconvincingly well housed. I can't explain why, nonetheless, it makes me feel so good to watch it sometimes. One thing that really sticks out watching it now is how often characters are seen doing basically nothing--Joey sitting in his chair, Chandler playing hide-and-seek with birds, etc. Now, of course, they'd pull out their phones in those moments. The characters are/were my precise contemporaries, so no doubt nostalgia for the pre-internet, post-Cold War world of my own younger days drives some of my pleasure in watching it.
5
To those who just can't get over the spacious NY apartment thing, here are a couple more bombshells for you. Most ER doctors do not look like George Clooney. The women George Costanza dated were far too attractive for him (based on personality, not his looks). Sitcom reality is different than real reality.
22
What a bunch of sorry gripes to this article. Most of you are saying you didn't watch it and that you didn't like it. So you feel compelled to comment on a show about you know nothing. What you missed is the sophisticated physical humor and the warmth of the camaraderie that this ensemble brought. Twenty five years later, I'm still watching and still laughing. Stick with watching The Simpsons and leave Friends to those of us who appreciate the subtlety of the writing and the performance.
32
Neither "Friends" nor "Seinfeld" was about New York in its period. Perhaps now, when Manhattan gets whiter and richer every time I visit, when even the Bronx and Queens are being invaded by the pseudo NYers from Peoria, these shows portray NY and NYers fairly. Perhaps they were prophetic about the city being overtaken by self absorbed, self centered whiners with well paid jobs and tons of leisure.
But they were never funny. Ever.
4
The aspect of both Seinfeld and Friends is that both were based in "NYC" and somehow avoided showing people of color like they were trying to avoid the plague. Is it true that white people can live life without interacting with any person of color especially when there are so many around in a city like NYC?
I don't expect comedy to be politically correct but you have to be totally isolated to live like that. It shows how poorly the producers depicted reality even in fictional life.
2
For anyone needing a palate cleanser after reading some of these hyper-critical comments, check out the series 'Episodes', which spoofs Hollywood and, in particular, 'Friends'.
6
Wow.
"For some of its run, “Friends” aired opposite “Living Single,” on Fox, a good, “Friends”-ish show that was also the black party."
"Living Single" preceded Friends. When it debuted, it was on Fox, which was taking a chance on having a show with actors that were black as the leads, along with some of their other shows. What made you think white people weren't welcome to the party--and didn't watch it? What made it so "black"? Last time I checked, intra-cast love affairs, physical comedy, extreme situations and special guest stars, whether Eartha Kitt or Julia Roberts, are part of the sitcom tradition.
Many of us (and by us, I mean my black AND white Gen-X friends), in fact, thought that NBC saw what was great about the Fox show and decided to make their own version-because copycat networks are also part of the tradition.
If you didn't think Living Single was for you, how are you doing with other shows that have black or multicultural casts? Or do you just not care to be exposed to other cultures? Perhaps you're just upset when shows aren't specifically targeted to you. You'l miss out on a lot, if that's the case.
3
So much snobbery in these comments. The show was fine. It had a few truly genius moments, some decent laughs in between, and David Schwimmer and Matthew Perry have impeccable comedic timing.
It's a sitcom. Some of you are dissecting it like it's Shakespeare. Yes, the romances were ridiculous. Yes, New York is more diverse than it's presented. Yes, the sexual innuendo doesn't play well today. That's all true. But it's a bloody sitcom. You're not supposed to take it that seriously. All that matters is whether it was funny. A lot of people think it was. There is no denying the chemistry among the cast, even if you have no taste for canned laughter and cliche sitcom writing. That's how TV comedies were written back then. Obvious plots that provided the potential for laughs, with low enough stakes that you could hit the reset button for next week's episode.
Yes, Seinfeld had much better writing...which is why Seinfeld is widely regarded as the best sitcom ever. But Friends is fine. It's a B+ sitcom. So many of you are getting so worked up over such negligible details. The apartments are too big! Is that the difference between whether something is funny or not to you? Get over yourselves.
21
Friends was vapid and unfunny. Forced nostalgia cannot make it worth watching.
5
This show made NYC look like Iceland demographically.
No wonder it never cracked the Top 50 in ratings among black viewers.
5
Regardless of race and ethnicity, Friends will never amount to be anything more than a cheap, dull, unimaginative, poorly written knock-off of the “friends” in Seinfeld.
5
@Nick Except in age. Seinfeld was late baby boom. Friends was early Gen X.
1
Are any ' Friends ' any more black African American than ' Seinfeld ' ?
2
Are you people really unfamiliar with the literary convention of "we"?
3
We aren't !
1
As a NYC Gen X-er, I could never get past the unbelievability of their nice apartments.
2
Friends was an awesome show, and I so happy that they could make jokes without having to be politically correct or sensitive to the needs of today's snowflakes ... I mean millennials. A show like this could never be made today ... jokes about homosexuality, ethnic jokes, and an all-white cast that gelled well with each other. For people who get offended by this ... grow up! This is just a TV show and not real life.
By the way, I am an Indian and I loved the line about Indian food!
8
Chandler did NOT pee on Monica's leg. it was Joey.
1
No, Joey got stage fright. Chandler had to do the deed.
3
Friends, Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother. A bunch of white friends, hanging out, and hanging on to their adolescence way longer than the rest of us. Such privileged, unrealistic lives.
4
As Oscar Brown Jr. so eloquently sang, "What you mean ‘We’ White Man?”
1
The gay jokes don't land, to say the least, and a show about NYC with a uniformly white cast doesn't tell much of a story about a New York minute.
Asking pop culture to tell deep and meaningful truths across the board is like fishing in a puddle. I did recently see a guy on the 4/5 in Crown Heights wearing a shirt that took the Friends logo but instead spelled it "Bredrens." He gets it.
1
Why is it that those who object to the use of “we” assume he’s talking about them? Get over yourselves, it’s just a sitcom. And a very funny one.
5
I have seen a lot of episodes thanks to my young daughter.
A lot of poor cultural and sexist references when u really pay attention to it.
Even unwelcome LGBT references.
We just watch it to see how stupid people can be but there is no substance or message
Put Seinfeld to play: a book in human psychology
49
@J Lad definitely some things that wouldn't fly now. But, just having Ross' ex-wife be a lesbian with a girlfriend was still a pretty unusual thing at the time.
28
The show premiered 25 years ago. Times have changed. To put it in perspective, to those of us who watched the show the first time around in 1994, it would be like us criticizing a show that premiered in 1969 back then for its stereotypical treatment of people of color, gays, lesbians, etc. Trust me, the gay wedding made Friends one of the more socially progressive shows back then. Heck, Ellen didn't come out of the closet on her show until a few years later!!!
16
Show is absolutely awful. Canned laughs, setup punchline, setup punchline... rinse lather repeat.
226
@JP And in its stead you would nominate ...
2
@David Rose. The office, big bang theory, modern family. Even from back then, two and a half men, third rock, that seventies, married with children. When friends is on, I reflexively punch channel up.
7
I’ve always found Friends really lame and predictable.
What am I missing that everyone else seems to adore?
12
Thank you Wesley Morris. With all the criticism the show is drawing, I feel validated that you share my enjoyment of the show (then and now). I also love Seinfeld and appreciate that that show was infinitely more sophisticated than Friends. And yes there are many arguably better sitcoms out there, and I blanched when I read that you think it had the all time best sitcom cast. To me, that honor still goes to The Mary Tyler Moore show. (RIP Valerie Harper!) But Friends still has its great pleasures after all these years.
5
A lot of us don't get The Friends craze. I didn't when it premiered and still don't. Even though Seinfeld didn't reflect the NYC I knew, it was much better than The Friends.
3
Geez, at least get the name right. Otherwise it makes us think you’ve never even watched it.
4
My 20 year-old daughter was very sick and in severe pain for several weeks waiting for surgery (thankfully she is just fine now). When she couldn’t sleep at night because of the pain, we would binge watch Friends. She was watching it for the first time and I was revisiting old friends. Despite that in some ways it hadn’t aged well, we laughed a lot and it was the perfect distraction during a terrible time. I will be forever thankful for “Friends” ( and especially Joey - he’s just so funny!!)
11
Quite boring at the time for me. Never found it remotely engaging. Now in retrospect - (my mind is probably more scattered and shallow) kind of fun. Definitely the product of what was marketable/$$$$$. :-)
3
The main problem with "Friends" isn't that it looks dated today. It was dated while it was on the air. Were these really 20-somethings living in Midtown Manhattan from 1994-2004? They always looked and acted like suburbanites to me. The show is criticized for being so white, so straight (and terribly uptight about anything gay). This is because that's not an accurate reflection of time and place.
Young people in Manhattan at that time weren't as isolated from the real world as they are shown to be on "Friends".
Which I guess is why the show has such a universal appeal. It could have, and should have, taken place in Smalltown, USA.
4
There are so many great sitcoms that are based in NYC. “The Honeymooners,” “I Love Lucy,” “All in the Family” and it’s spin-offs, including “The Jeffersons,” “Seinfeld,” “30 Rock,” etc. that “Friends” doesn’t even register as top-10 of NYC sitcoms or sitcoms in general.
I watched a few episodes of “Friends” with friends and just couldn’t get into it. As a native New Yorker it struck me as what midwesterners imaging living in NYC to be besides the fact that I find the comedy vapid and shallow.
Just my two cents, but I would have to agree with the majority of commenters. “Friends” is a bland, safe sitcom set in a diverse, edgy, square city.
It is a sitcom for people who never lived in NYC but fantasize about it.
8
I wasn’t a Friends fan either. My fave NYC based show was Taxi. Loved the intro!
7
Wondering who the "we" are that can't stop watching Friends today ? Never really watch it and probably wouldn't be able sit through an episode. Personally, Iprefer other sitcoms from that era like Third rock from the Sun, Frasier, which have far better writing, greater cast and a much deeper message about human the trials and tribulations of human existence that are very much valid today as back then.
8
@Steve Friends was the second-most streamed show (after the Office) on Netflix last year, so there is definitely an appreciable group that cannot stop watching it.
5
@Steve I watched Friends religiously when it was on TV and am now re-watching it on Netflix. I prefer Friends because it's humorous and that's what shows are meant to be - not a reflection of the trials and tribulations of human life. I apply the same philosophy to movies - I watch movies to get away from reality, not to live it through a screen.
9
I stopped watching after the opening credits on the first show. They just looked too prett, too perfect and too happy. I also thought that it was pretty retro even then, a throwback to the pastel eighties which I was relieved had finally ended. I didn’t feel it was for me. Now I’m gasping for air that that was 25 years ago. I still won’t watch it, but I know more about it through cultural saturation than I care to. But I have grown fond of the actors. Maybe I will watch it.
4
This was mentioned in the piece as well, but someone mentioned to me that one thing about this show is that the "friends" worked in all different combinations, not just as a sextet or as couples. I wasn't a regular watcher of this show when it was first on the air, but I admit to enjoying it's 90s pre-internet vibe now. And I will always enjoy Jennifer Aniston's comedic timing and great wardrobe. She must be a little gratified that after all the tabloidy nonsense and handwringing about her relationship status she's had to endure, this show is having a renaissance and is wildly popular among a new generation.
1
Did not watch it then, will not be watching the rehash.
10
Lame TV sitcom fare. Throw out a one liner, pause while audience laughs, rinse, repeat. Lame Seinfeld wannabe.
9
...oh yes we can.
6
Don't say "we".
9
I’ve never watched Friends, but that is one ugly sofa.
5
Friends, unlike Seinfeld and Sex in the City, has very little to do with NYC. Could be any city. That for me means it’s flawed. In the sense that it’s generic, not that NYC is the only place worth considering.
4
I think for me the part that ages this show in the worst way is the idea that Ross and Rachel are held up as this "love conquers all" kind of couple. This only works if love conquers toxic jealousy, cheating, lying about annulling their marriage, being a practically absentee father, and the grand gesture to end the series be asking her to give up a major career to stay with him because...love?
Sitcoms aren't supposed to be reality, but a show that takes ten years to show us that love means giving up on everything you've ever worked towards for a guy you've never let down, but has let you down over and over again? Hard pass thanks.
3
Funny how my Gen Z devoured this and The Office and can quote lines from the episodes. I think it's like a safe,warm space when the world is full of terrifying threats like school shootings.
7
I like the show much more now than ever. I was a teenager when it was originally on and I did not understand or get the subtle humor that the show is full then. It is hilarious and well acted.
8
Ahh, those were the days. When out of work actors and coffeehouse waitresses could afford 1400 square-foot, two and three bedroom apartments in Manhattan.
With huge patios and a view.
18
I only saw more than a couple of episodes and I never liked this show. I saw late night re-runs of That 70's Show and I really liked that show and thought it was funny,well written and well acted.
6
When my teenaged daughter started watching this show on Netflix I was excited to see it too-I loved it when it was on prime time. I guess I am old now because I found it had not held up at all.
2
I believe that Frazier remains the best comedy series ever, save for maybe All In the Family.
7
Just want to let everyone know that I don't care for opera. I'm not going to read a long article about opera, and then comment on it that I don't care for opera and that opera isn't good.
33
@Dan B
Opera is even worse than Friends.
1
Huh? Friends has always been lame. Never had trouble not watching.
9
“Friends’ Is Turning 25. Here’s Why We Can’t Stop Watching it.”
Who’s WE?
That show jumped the shark long before its last season.
11
Look, I certainly have guilty pleasure entertainment as I'm a sucker for 1980's horror films (I've seen then all, including all the ones you've never heard of), but I never watched one episode of Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers, Big Bang Theory, etc...Those shows are like ham, salami, and mac & cheese, even though I've NEVER tried those 3 foods, I know I wouldn't like them....Same for the aforementioned comedies...
But I think i've seen every episode of the original Hawaii Five-O, not the horrific 2010 re-boot of the show, and Miami Vice....
You *would* like Seinfeld.
Let’s not forget the grandparents of all successful sitcoms- whose brilliant writing and acting revolves around characters we got to intimately know and whose reactions were predictable and eagerly anticipated in every episode. They survive today in their timeliness: “I Love Lucy” and “The Honeymooners.”
7
Friends don't let friends watch Friends.
20
I can stop. And, did.
11
How about the days when binge watching TV to compensate for whatever's missing in modern lives being dubbed "The End of Culture" instead? I mean, how much self-loathing does it take to passionately discard your own experience to watch some empty advertising saturated concoction for a vicarious kick?
Friends was never anything more than a dumbed down Seinfeld, derivative and pandering to a needy demographic, one easily hooked on anything that let them escape the challenges and realities of their own lives.
7
@David Stone
Wow... someone had their thesoraus out. Thanks for that insight.
And TV, at least a lot of it, is designed as an avenue for people to escape the daily challenges and realities of their own lives... which Friends did quite well, and continues to do to this day.
1
I know of an actually funny show about a group of friends. It’s called Seinfeld.
15
@Matt Occhuizzo
Sorry, but Seinfeld is an unwatchable show about the 4 most unlikeable characters ever grouped in an ensemble.
I will sit through endless 50s and 60s European horror movies with my husband, but will not watch that show.
Different strokes ... oh, never mind. You probably didn't watch that, either.
3
After rewatching some Friends episodes recently, couldn’t help but note that like most television it is still sexist, chauvinistic garbage in which the audience is told time and again that the men are victims and that any unacceptable male behavior is excused since “the girls do it too.”
4
Some of the best acting on TV back then? You have got to be kidding.
8
Sex and the City and Friends are symbolic of the Suburbanizing of New York City. RIP creativity in NY
2
While the two shows are incomparable, Frasier aired a year prior to Friends. Both shows primarily focused on meetings at a coffee shop, and I think both contributed to the cafe culture of the time.
2
My daughter 12 and my son 15 love this show and can't stop watching it. I watched it in the 90s and enjoyed it but it's not something I go back to. But for my kids I think it's the camaraderie of this group that makes it attractive to them. Many of their peers are always on there phones and on social media and this about being together in real life. That's definitely something missing in the younger generation - My kids prefer in person interactions but that's not always true of their peers.
12
I watched this show back in the day. I was in college when it started and I continued to watch for a while post-graduation. I don't remember exactly what it was that made me stop watching, but it was probably just the show getting repetitive after a while (like often happens with long-running shows). And I never watched any reruns.
I truly don't understand the lasting appeal. Someone just yesterday who is a good 15 years younger than me was telling me that he watches it. I read this article to try to understand the 'magic', but I just don't see it.
4
What a beautiful, lovely ode to a timeless and classic show. I especially enjoyed the piece as a fellow person of color who is slightly younger than the author - Mr. Morris doesn't gloss over the lily whiteness of the show, but instead provides an incisive analysis that embraces its shortcomings in this context but also points out the things it did right. I grew up with Friends as a young Gen Xer/old millenial (or xennial if you will) and when I was going through a difficult pregnancy last year with my first child, Friends was the TV version of grilled cheese and tomato soup - the ultimate comfort food. I still like to yell out "Pivot!" or "Yes, yes it is...in prison!" or "Could you BE any more (fill in the blank)?" when the occasion calls for it. It is likely the only television show that I cannot turn away from when i come across it while channel surfing, despite having watched every single episode countless times. It will have a special place in my heart forever!
13
I loved it back when it came out - but never got to see them all. It was a time of no DVR and no streaming.
But recently have been watching it with my teen age son who absolutely loves it. This show does transcend generations.
6
Y'all. Friends is not "excellent comedy". Get a life.
6
@Zydeco Girl It's kind of subjective, isn't it?
5
I did some field work in western Mongolia and shared a ger with my Mongolian-English translator. He was a twenty-something and spent the hours between 10 pm and God knows when, binge watching DVD's of Friends. Could not keep him away!
25
@Roger
What, Courtney-Cox was chopped liver? “Horrible” show? Compared to what (of that era), or are we making judgements of yesterday through the lens of today? How conveniently easy that is, to feel superior without suffering the consequences of making a stand among those who were there.
3
Never got the appeal of this show. Wit-free dialogue, canned laughs, one-dimensional characters. Meh....
10
@Demforjustice
If you want to see one-dimensional characters, try watching Seinfeld. Yuck ...
6
I watched a couple of eps, found it lame and unfunny. Sorry.
8
I never watched this show - EVER!!
5
Your award is in the mail!
7
Shows are written.
There are what, 22 minutes for a situation comedy? You got to divy up the speaking and acting and reaction shots between six people and the add ons to set up the episode.
You got to have two couples with barriers to what they want but all know they are the couples no matter what they are doing because the Viewer Knows Who They Are and two floating unattached. You got to have two different plots that start and end together. Every show. You got to keep focused on the show even when the show gets famous and makes its own weather and that will ruin a show fast unless the craftsman know their craft inside out. The actors now stars got to continue ensemble.
It ain’t easy.
Examining the show as 90s anthropology projected onto the 2020s rather misses the mark. Tells us nothing about why the show works. Most shows didn’t.
Many say they learn English watching the show and know the characters as friends or who they relate to. Learn from.
And about the rush of production. Here is one of many shows shot on the fly and rewritten on the fly based on the overnite audience numbers with two hours a week churned out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassy_Girl_Chun-hyang
Nine weeks. Seventeen hours. And famous in a famous style of grind it out television run by corporate suits widely watched around the world. So the grind of Friends isn’t special. The craftsmanship is.
Yeah. Seinfeld is better because Larry David as are many things. But it ain’t Friends.
30
Never watched a single episode.
8
@BWCA
Congratulations on that... thanks for letting us all know!
1
With everything that's going on in the world, why not devote an entire article to a mediocre and formulaic tv show that portrays a completely unrealistic version of the life of 20-somethings in 90s New York City?
Meh.
8
I basically stopped reading when the critic summarized the premise of Seinfeld as "What trouble will Jerry and the gang instigate?" Sheesh. Maybe that's why he likes Friends so much.
3
@LC I only ever saw about half of one episode of Seinfeld, so I can't pass judgment, but I was struck at the time by how mean-spirited it seemed. I've only ever seen a few episodes of Friends, but was struck at the time by its warmth.
7
@TMJ that's absolutely true (and a reason people like Seinfeld, when they like it). your observation about these differences is sharper than the critic's.
5
@TMJ -- Thanks -- I think you've finally helped me understand why I can't stand Seinfeld. Those people are just so unpleasant. Maybe I'm supposed to get some pleasure from seeing them get their comeuppance, I don't know. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to "get it."
5
I read every word of this article. I feel like a deserve an Emmy.
5
"Excellent comedy"? Not even for its time, and certainly not compared to shows like "The Good Place".
It was often warm and amusing yet shallow, self-involved and unreflective of the reality of living in NY.
4
I nearly always hated “Friends,” because in order to develop the plot, the “friends” often lied to each other. I wonder how many real world friends would stay friends in the face of all that lying?
3
I never watched "FRIENDS" in the 90s but it's become my bedtime TV every single night since oh, 2009? The fact that Nicolodeon plays 3 in a row and local channel 5 also plays back to back (all after 10:30 pm) gives me a strange sense of security during these crazy times. I watch the episodes over and over and never get tired of them. It's weird to see the World Trade towers in the pre-9/11 episodes. And I must note that an early episode had Ross' ex-wife marrying her partneron, long before gay marriage appeared on other shows.
6
On the heels of Seinfeld, the show never appealed to me then and now.
7
Yes, I do know what Chandler does for a living. And I have become an addict of YouTube "Friends" outtakes. For me, they humanize the show. Chandler and Monica and Rachel and yes, even Ross, looking into the camera: "I used to able to act..."
4
I'm surprised by the comments. I thought it was just me who didn't like the show. It is one of the most popular shows ever made so someone likes it and it's not the demographic that reads the NY times. I agree with most of the comments about Seinfeld being the better show by far. The other show that was better than Friends was Mad About You.
7
@ LofColorado-
Agreed. How this writer or anyone could compare Friends to Sienfeld is just a joke. And yes, Mad About You was way more clever and funny than Friends could ever be.
Don’t get me wrong, I watched the show for years. But just like any show that is on for many years, with each passing season it gets closer to jumping the shark. That it did for sure well before the last season.
1
@LofColorado --
I always like Mad About You. But Seinfeld ... so unlikeable as to be unwatchable.
3
Offering a different perspective from halfway across the world: Friends is a very narrow view of American society, which has been blown up and packaged for international consumption. So it makes sense that the world loved it, but many Americans (especially NYT readers) cannot see it in the same light as Seinfeld and Frasier.
A realistic depiction of life in NYC it may not be, but a whole lot of people around the world connected with these six and their shenanigans. Friends was/is light-hearted, fun, and comforting. We’ve enjoyed Seinfeld and Frasier too for what they are, but there’s really no need to compare Friends with these.
7
I think the reason Friends was so tedious is that the characters were all dolts. Was that the point of the comedy? If so, it failed. It would have been hilarious, however, if these youngsters had appeared as group therapy cohorts on the Bob Newhart Show.
3
Young viewers had a vehicle to imagine themselves living the NYC life. That was enough to get folks to tune in. It was an alright situational comedy, don't over think the thing. It's fine, it's an amusing show at times , I guess even a phenomenon at the time it ran, but really it was a a "lazy read" and there is nothing wrong with that. It was positioned well for mass consumption and that's what is exceptional about the show, they knocked viewership out of the park.
3
As entertainment I always thought it was kinda stuck in second gear
14
Mr. Morris, speak for yourself.
I didn’t start watching “Friends” until Season 3, and only because my friends would incessantly prattle on about “Ross and Rachel”. When I finally surrendered, the show held my interest only for two seasons, maybe three.
The reason “Friends” was so wildly successful is because it played to the lowest common denominator. That’s all. It was the ultimate canned sit-com, helmed by an ensemble of six pleasantly attractive white (and straight) 20-somethings.
NBC had far superior comedies before, during, and after - “Cheers”, “Wings”, “Frasier”, “Seinfeld”. I’ll rewatch those until I go blind; you can keep “Friends”.
11
I liked Lisa Kudrow's other sitcom, "Mad About You," a little better. But my favorite from that era is still "NewsRadio." If NBC had left it alone, it would have made the magic 100-episode cutoff for syndication.
4
Definitely a shame that NewsRadio is not in syndication. That was a brilliant show.
Boy, do I miss Phil Hartman.
1
I'm not really a fan but I'm pleased to note I have the maturity to recognize that comedy is extremely subjective, that sitcoms are not slice-of-life documentaries, and it's not a racial injustice to depict that white people tend to hang out with each other. Based on the comment section it appears to be a pretty rare quality.
11
@Max
Very well said Max... agree 100%.
1
I loved this show. And it’s the only show I can find 2 minute YouTube clips of and laugh like a hyena with my anxious 12 year old son. Joey not sharing food and Ross’s mad adventures in leather pants are timeless, adorable comedy. Does never seeing this show make you a better person than the rest of us? IT SO DOES NOT!!’
8
@Qui These haters are like someone who has rambled for on for 15 pages - front and BACK!
4
After discovering brilliant Brit-coms in the 90s, including "Red Dwarf," "Absolutely Fabulous" and "Blackadder" (seasons 2-4), as well as the genius of "Seinfeld," the show "Friends" was nothing but a typical, tired American sitcom -- the same exact kinds of jokes and humor as had been done in countless other American sitcoms over the decades. Plus, the fact that the Friends lived in such nice, large apartments in NYC on little income in some of their cases was lame and uninteresting. Out of the couple dozen episodes of "Friends" that I had to endure at friends' houses/apartments in the 1990s, I laughed exactly one time -- at something the monkey did.
11
@Chad aren’t you sophisticated!
12
Sorry but I've got to agree I never thought Friends was funny (and I've watched enough episodes to judge).
And I've loved a lot of sitcoms over the years- Cheers, Frazier, Everybody loves Raymond ( actually quite savage comedy) and of course Seinfeld (watch the repeats every day).
I liked MASH a lot until the later years when Hawkeye became so pompous and self righteous.
These days the best comedies are animated (Bojack Horseman anybody?)
Friends was just blah.
8
This is a great piece of writing and criticism.
The lowest form of criticism in today's PC world is "the piece of art doesn't represent my particular minority group so it is bad".
Or perhaps "it punches down and true comedy always punches up".
Both of these knee-jerk criticisms are found in the publications of the likes of Slate, Vice, Buzzfeed, etc. And they are so tiresome.
14
I found the show repugnant. Beautiful young white people seemingly never working but living in an apartment that only the wealthy in New York could afford. Their relationships were shallow and the main characters seemed almost incestuous. This show depicted the worst not the best of millenials.
13
@Steve
Right, it wasn't like all those other sitcoms that were racially diverse, deep character studies showing realistic homes and the tedium of work.
18
@Steve They weren't millenials.
6
@Dan B
They were in my book.
3
Who is this "we" who can't stop watching it?
15
My thought exactly. I’ve never watched more than a few scenes and never found it to be very funny or engaging.
9
@JS
The term "we" is often used in the press as shorthand for society as a whole, for example when one of the biggest shows of all time is still enormously popular after 25 years. No one was talking about you in particular.
8
Thanks for the @Max planation...
1
So many haters! I never realized the NYT comment section was comprised of pretentious philosophy majors smoking clove cigarettes in the corner. Jeez.
Seinfeld has its moments, but I cannot stand Jerry Seinfeld’s smug face and terrible acting. The show would’ve been 10x better if they had kept the other three and ditched him. Friends is fun and light, and the weakest cameo on that show is still funnier and more watchable than bland old Jerry Seinfeld.
16
To call "hhaters" is easy. No thought required. But oh so satisfying. Just like "Friends"?
5
The original comment was considerably more thoughtful and insightful than the response, but sure.
2
If you ever wondered if you are an intellectual snob, Friends is a litmus test.
11
Who do you mean by "we"? You certainly don't include me and millions of others. Please don't use 'we' when you mean yourself and/or simply some others.
7
I’m going to Yemen!
10
"Excellent comedy"???? It was terrible.
I managed to sit through three episodes. All I could think was that, if I'd been that appallingly stupid and immature when I was in my 20s/30s, I would hope someone would have had the decency to shoot me!
Anyone who assimilated this garbage must be truly warped!
9
It must be a generational thing. None of my peers can even watch FRIENDS . WILL & GRACE is a far superior show.
6
I find it amazing that people can call Friends undiverse and sexist and call I Love Lucy timeless in the same breath.
10
@William Some people like the Honeymooners, where the main character's signature line was about punching his wife so hard she wound up on the moon.
6
"Friends" was a sitcom ... basically a Doris Day/Rock Hudson tale that bent over backwards to avoid introducing any realistic characters or plots.
Just like Donna Reed and Father Knows Best, it attempted to depict a social fantasy which allegedly represented the instincts and interests of "average" people. It was a comic strip, as devoid of reality as medieval stories that featured Hope, Love, and other archetypes drawn essentially from religion and other forms of "average" people's bigotry.
1
I didn't hate it. I didn't love it. If it's on I can watch it without feeling like I need to escape, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it. If you love it I think that's your business and it doesn't bother me at all. Your affection for this show in no way detracts from my affection for other shows. If you hate Friends that's your business too. However, the offense that many of the people commenting here seem to feel because Wesley Morris likes a show that they don't mystifies me. Are you all really that insecure? Really, who cares that you preferred Seinfeld? This column isn't about Seinfeld.
7
"Friends" shows up in my house frequently, as do other older sitcoms ("Everybody Loves Raymond," "Seinfeld," "M*A*S*H" among them). I think familiarity--watching show after show after show, without that weeklong break in between--breeds understanding, respect, even admiration at how well these shows were written. The characterizations hold up season after season. The story arcs make sense and work well together. Individual episodes can be absolutely brilliant. I get so much more from the shows now than when they were first-run on network TV.
25
I'm 50 years old and never liked this show from the beginning. It makes no sense, as I am their target audience to a tee. I found the normalized sexism, racism, elitism, and homophobia to be rather glaring and annoying. I didn't laugh at the jokes. Period. Full stop. I don't understand the enduring appeal of the show.
6
@Francophile100 Of course. You're a francophile. Friends is nothing compared to Proust.
4
Instead of everyone posting their own, grumpy, I hated this show, in fact, I hated it so much I never watched it, I only like fancy things, like masterpiece theater, or Seinfeld, just click recommend on this comment and consider your point made already.
5
@Dan B - No disrespect meant but your comments are prolific here too! I count several of them.
1
@Zydeco Girl And none of them are to pronounce that I have no interest in the subject matter. In fact, I am interested in the subject matter. That's why I comment.
3
The show always felt pretty flat to me, kind of anticlimactic after Seinfeld.
5
Never could get through even one episode of it myself. But then Seinfeld was the only sitcom I enjoyed in the last 50 years.
There are just too many more interesting, and entertaining choices. Commercial TV is pathetic and depressing.
4
@Joe Runciter --
Could you please explain what you like so much about Seinfeld? Seriously.
I don't get what's enjoyable about watching a bunch of self-absorbed jerks and their various misadventures, but maybe I'm just an unsophisticated hick.
1
@JM
Possibly. I couldn't say really.
"There’s something gluey in the music of David Schwimmer’s whine. But Ross was sad, needy, insecure, quick to anger — dark, basically — and built like a jock."
Great writing!
Unlike everyone else in these comments, I actually liked Friends and still like it. In the 90's I was a teenager, so perhaps the right audience. (I also revere Seinfeld and adored Living Single, so there's that.) However, I rewatched the show last year and was struck by how great the actors are. All six are comedically talented with impeccable timing. Schwimmer especially had a wonderfully honed physical humor, but Kudrow is my favorite. She is such a treasure, and a gift to comedy.
95
@Another Emma I was unimpressed with the writing - I thought it was long and tedious. But I too was impressed with "there’s something gluey in the music of David Schwimmer’s whine".
3
"Friends" is the achievable dream life. Imagine to have 5 close friends, have an occasional job, and inherit a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan. Tall order, but not entirely unrealistic.
As great as "Married with Children" or other earlier sit-coms were, it's just pure fantasy at this point to afford a house in the suburbs (and children) with just the husband working a 9-5 job.
3
The coffee shop scenes provide a historical lesson for today's teens. Everybody was in a conversation (with an occasional interruption by a phone call on the flip phone).
10
For those of us who grew up in 70s, especially those of us who grew up in racially diverse communities, the fact that Ross and Joey dating nonwhite women wouldn't have been a point of interest. They were the women they were dating, and we'd either like or not like them based on who they were, not the color of their skin.
It wasn't "willfully naïve." It's just how it was. In the 70s, we'd argue about who would get to be Geraldine and who would get to be the judge when we'd play re-enact skits from the previous night's Flip Wilson show. We knew they were black (we have eyes and could see that). But we also knew they were hysterical, and that was what mattered.
5
Loved most of the story lines, but hated the pumped-up laughter.
2
I have looked at this show occasionally to see what the fuss was about. I never found a reason to smile, much less laugh. Give me the great writing and comic acting of "The Honeymooners," which still makes me laugh after 60-plus years and many viewings; the wit of "Cheers," and the hilarious absurdity of "Seinfeld."
4
I used to watch the show. It was funny, but after noticing how undiverse the cast and extras were, it became increasingly difficult for me to watch. As a person (and parent) of color, I find it disturbing how many of our "favorite" shows don't even give a token nod to make the shows reflect the surroundings where they are based. I recall the Orprah comment to the cast in 1995, “I’d like y’all to get a black friend.”
This is my way of saying that for many, "we can stop watching it", and did.
6
This was an excellent essay on a beloved sitcom that somehow never gets old. "Friends" aired just as I turned 34. I watched the first 6 seasons regularly, but by the time I turned 40 I seemed to have outgrown the show. I still get a laugh out of it when I'm on business travel and I happen on an episode on my hotel room's television set.
I think "Friends" works because the characters created a family from their connections to each other. It resonated with me during the time I watched it because it premiered just as I accepted the fact that I was gay, and my gay friends became my family as we all navigated the 90s era of don't ask, don't tell, dealing with our real families's reactions to our sexuality, dating, and relationships. Like the six on "Friends", we were all there for each other.
2
As my husband likes to put it, "Friends" was the first TV show with people who talked like we did.
We were just a little too young for Thirtysomething. A bit too old for Saved by the Bell. Friends is really the first show for the tail end of the Baby Boom and the start of Gen X.
Those characters could have been us -- although we were already old enough to know that unless Monica or Ross had been living with their Nana when she died, there's no way they'd have "inherited" the rent-controlled apartment.
3
Not everyone was enamored with this show. Personally. I watched only one episode which I didn't like at all and never watched again.
8
What a lovely tribute. Friends was thoroughly GenX. It showed friends as family, and its humor was based on sarcasm and irony. Friends got me through tough times, including illness and big moves. I really miss clever banter as comedy, and I admit that I barely understand the comedies I see now.
The shows aren't witty anymore. Instead I see over-the-top satire that becomes silly caricature, and therefore unfunny. Lots of gratuitous vulgarity in comedy and drama alike. Everything seems excessive. Modern Family could be really funny but even that is starting to feel long ago.
And some members of the younger generation are so afraid to offend anyone, and take things so seriously, that they've lost a major dimension of humor that they won't be able to replace. At least they haven't so far.
1
Still love this show. Some of the lines are dated but if you look at any show of that era or before, there were a lot of inappropriate lines or stereotypes. I never got Seinfeld and don't care to get it because of all the television snobs that want to decry the brilliance of Friends over whatever Jerry and crew were doing. FRIENDS was Must See TV for me.
2
Ok, it was a very enjoyable show. It is now 25 years old. Could we please move on? I am constantly mystified that 'Hollywood' can't find the new writers for new shows. Every 'new'show is a scripted 'reality' show with Americans trying to beat each other for some prize wether a bachelor or money. IMO this is beyond awful entertainment.
Go find the writers and make some new shows!
3
@Elizabeth
The premise is the show is popular on Netflix.
Right now.
Real popular.
So. Time to muse why. Why is Friends so popular? Now. Especially given its terrible terrible faults. Then. And now.
3
Never watched it (not litterally, but enough to get the idea), never will. Quite frankly, one of the worst sitcoms in my book. My feelings for that show are so strong that yes, I did feel compelled to write a comment.
6
@alex So you did watch it? Got it.
4
I worked on the pilot of Friends, at the time I was crewing on Murphy Brown too. I can remember watching Michael Keaton advising Jennifer Aniston on how to turn her role on. He seemed to be there as coach, he whispered like Batman into her ears.
The set itself was standard sitcom with the coffee shop as the "bullpen" with ancillary three-wall spaces for apartments, etc.
What this article misses is that Friends was one of the first sitcoms under the deregulated TV industry, so the show did not have an independent production company, it was a Warner Bros production. This was a large contrast from the Norman Lear years, or even Murphy Brown. Friends was a corporate-friendly show, and the "suits" were not going to broker controversy in the way that All in the Family or M*A*S*H did.
Even Seinfeld had more edge because of the old independent producer structure. Friends was comfort food for TV, marketed and shaped into a palatable snack for couch sitting viewers. Think of it as fast food: good in an emergency but addictive and homogeneous.
Someone needs to write about the gang of TV directors working during this late phase of sitcom TV. James Burrows, Peter Bonerz, Tom Cherones, Lee Shallet Chemel, Pam Fryman, et. al. roamed from sitcom to sitcom which insured that the all the shows retained a similar and fixed structure. This is why a feeling of "finding refuge" comes with every episode. Each show was a familiar "dance" by the same set of choreographers.
28
Wait a sec. "Friends" ran on NBC, which was not kin to Warner Bros. Not like TNT ("The Closer") or The WB ("Gilmore Girls").
@Lorem Ipsum
"The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Kevin S. Bright, Kauffman, and Crane." -wiki
I can assure you that"in association with" indicates control.
Thanks for this insightful comment. I learned a lot reading it.
1
It's amazing how many of the comments are in the "I never watched it" category, yet those same folks read the article and/or felt compelled to comment? I didn't watch "Friends" when it was originally broadcast, but have watched re-runs over the years, and have been streaming it recently as I recuperate from surgery. It holds up surprisingly well. Still some laugh-out-loud moments, even in episodes I've seen a dozen times. Sure, a lot of it was unrealistic and a fantasy - that's why I watch TV. It's ridiculous to think that "Seinfeld" or "The Big Bang Theory" - or any sitcom - is somehow more realistic.
9
Mary Tyler Moore Show it was not. It comes down to the multi-dimensionality of the characters. All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Golden Girls even Seinfeld to a degree. These shows created characters that are so real that when you no longer see them on the tube/flat screen you miss them. Friends I was glad to see the back of them.
12
In its time, yes, Friends was a peak of strong casting, directing and writing, having learned the right lessons from its predecessors, and having been created by already experienced producers. That does not bring it anywhere near close to any of the productions by Grant Tinker in the 1970s and 80s. It comes close to Seinfeld. That's not saying that much. Imitation of HBO has been the death of Hollywood's production of mighty creativity.
I’ve never watched a single episode
8
My, my. Aren’t we special?
9
Can someone explain to me the appeal of reading an article about a show you hated or never watched and then commenting on said article?
56
@Dan B
Yup: It's called self validation.
4
The best part of this article are the comments by people who came here apparently only to let us know they never watched Friends and never will. Congrats?
47
Easily, one of the most annoying shows ever. For the life of me, I can not understand all the hype surrounding this show. It was so unrealistic. Like young folks would really live in NYC in huge apartments. And the cast just really seemed to be quite satisfied with themselves. Seinfeld was intelligent and quirky. Friends was just dumb.
7
No trouble not watching friends.
4
Whatever you think of "Friends", the guy who wrote this needs to get a life. Way too much about a pretty simple premise and show.
6
Right in the middle of Friends are two ubiquitous ethnic stereotypes: Joey, the dumb but good-looking, lower middle class Italian American guy, and Ross, who is intelligent, Jewish, educated, of some means, and a professional. It is obvious who is on the losing end.
Generations of viewers have been trained by these portrayals to believe they are true, including children who are members of these groups. They learned who they could be, and others also learned that about them.
Stereotypical portrayals of Italian Americans are pervasive and should be pointed out. Instead, there is a blindness that implies it is okay.
Shame on Wesley Morris for not calling the show out. For us as a society to be our best, to be just, and to get along, it shouldn't matter who is negatively stereotyped, ultimately, it harms everyone.
2
@Jan You are right. I never thought about the other negative stereotypes the show perpetuated. The dumb jock, the smart, quirky Jewish guy, the bubbly airhead blonde, etc. I did notice, however, that by leaving our Black and Brown people, friends definitely painted a stereotypical portrait of who could be fun and successful people in NYC.
I agree, shame on all the negative stereotypes!
3
Friends is a wonderfully adept comedy that has certainly aged much better than Seinfeld or Sex and the City.
Young people don't give a hoot about either of those shows anymore, yet they all know every episode of Friends by heart. There is no more ringing endorsement than that.
53
@Sparky
If you like something long enough, it's bound to come into fashion. I remember getting ostracized for wearing Birkenstocks in middle school. Turns out Birkenstocks were all the rage in 2015. Who knew? Just because young people like it doesn't make it good. See high-waisted jeans if you need an example. Why would you do that to yourself in the 21st century? Anything skinny-legged or spandex also make the list.
Ps. I now wear my Birkenstocks with socks. If you get the right pair of merino wool, the combination is darned comfortable in cooler months. Just wait. Socks and sandals will be all the rage in about 10 years.
3
@Andy -- as a knitter with a drawer full of hand-knit socks that I love to show off, I am waiting anxiously for the return of Birkenstocks with socks weather!
4
@Sparky Thanksgiving isn't a holiday without the Thanksgiving episodes, especially the one with the football game.
3
In high school and college we rewatched and repeated lines from 3 Stooges, Abbot and Costello, I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners. Our TBS, Nick at Nite were WPIX, WNEW and WOR home to the same monster movie all week and Saturday. Jackie Gleason ended the Honeymooners after 39 episodes, Lucy after her divorce from Desi. Fans lap up the 'Lost' episodes or colorized Lucy holiday episodes. Leave Friends for another generation, lots of other stuff to discover on Netflix, Amazon and HBO.
14
@Chef Dave
Ah, Dave, you’re bringing me back ! You are from NY or NJ judging by the listed stations. Remember Officer Joe Bolton ? The 3 Stooges of all vintages, Curley, Shemp, and that titan of sitcom acting, the immortal Joe Besser ?
Well, smh... as a black person I was always slightly offended by Friends. I am a huge Seinfeld fan but Friends felt like a Seinfeld wannabe without the sharp writing and acting. At least Seinfeld occasionally alluded to race in interesting ways
(i.e. Elaine thinking she’s dating a black guy, the time George volunteered at the old folks nonprofit)....none of that existed on the episodes of friends that I watched. Plus, the humor was just lame, not well written nor well executed. I’ve already wasted too much time on this subject.
101
@Jan
I agree with Jan. As a white man, I once referenced Friends to a black friend, and he winced. I learned an important lesson from that one little tick from my friend. I never could really watch it after that.
11
@Jan. Why does everything have to do with race? I enjoy blackish and im not black. Why does everything have to be seen through the lens of color? Why not just humanity?
22
@Jan I agree wholeheartedly with Jan. As someone with black ancestry I was considering a private college on the West coast. At one point during my visit, I noticed that all the buildings and lawns had suddenly emptied out - ALL the students had rushed to big common TVs to watch 'Friends'. That was when I knew that I would never be able to go to school there. Because @Sharon what you aren't seeing is that Friends is an in-your-face offensive 100% non-relatable show to people of color, and the celebration it received is kind of a celebration of bland non-excellence, a parade of exclusion. Other all-white shows aren't like that in the way Friends is. If this is incomprehensible to you, sit down and watch the show with a Black friend and see if you can get some clues as to why yes, actually, sometimes - not all the time - but sometimes it is about race. It is telling that you cite 'Blackish' as a show to prove you don't use race as a lens. Of all shows my goodness. If, in a room of open-minded, Seinfeld-and-Frasier-loving Black people (yes there are many of us), someone were to then turn on Friends, everyone would ask 'Why did you turn that on?!' with bewilderment. It's not about how white the cast is. It's about something deeper and immediately obvious to non-whites. You might ask yourself why you are blind to it.
13
I am glad the world is fully embracing the fact that Friends is awful.
I wonder what the backlash will be once all millennials realize The Office is just as bad.
4
I've never watched it. I have no plans to do so. It sounds incredibly lame.
2
@Les Bois Almost as lame as commenting about a show you've never watched.
9
@Dan
@Les Bois, your instincts are right. It is lame.
1
Overrated as no other. 'Seinfeld' was genius, 'Friends' was just meh.
7
How come none of the friends on "Friends" had any other friends?
8
Years and years ago Mash occupied the same place as Friends. It may still be on somewhere. The other show that seems to have staying power is Law and Order. Good writing is always appreciated.
Whew. Way too much ink spent on Friends. Objectively, it wasn’t that great. It got a boost after September 11, 2001 as Americans needed a familiar salve.
But to the author’s point that Friends was better than other shows because any character could say anything at anytime and you could easily swap lines among characters, that’s actually weak writing and/or character development. That’s why I could never watch Will and Grace. If the characters aren’t driving their lines, you’ve got a problem.
5
@Doug Mattingly
Exactly.
Whenever needed to bump the plot along or add a joke to vary the pacing, a line would just spring out of the mouth of whatever character was due for the next ine of dialogue.
Terrible, terrible 'by committee' writing. But perfect for a spot ad teasing next week's show. Unconnected to character or story line.
1
The Ross-Phoebe evolution debate always bugged me, because Phoebe really knew nothing about the subject. She was just playing on Ross's desire to appear open-minded by getting him to admit that "anything is possible," which, of course, it isn't. He was right, but she came out on top. Stephen Jay Gould would never put up with that nonsense. I wonder why Ross never made any friends at work, people he could relate to on is own level.
One thing I did like was that once Chandler and Monica got together, they never went through a breakup, which is a standard technique on sitcoms to prolong a romantic story arc. They realized they had a good thing and, despite a few bumps in the road, they stuck it out. It made up for the on-again, off-again Ross-Rachel affair, which grew tiresome.
5
Never liked the show, and still don't. A phenom I simply don't understand. Though I have to say I do like Phoebe, Lisa Kudrow has always been an understated talent.
5
Look at me, I'm commenting on how I didn't like or didn't watch a wildly successful, mainstream, popular show. Could I BE any more of a cliche?
22
@Dan B Didn't Phoebe date that guy? The psychologist who mocked them all?
2
Seinfeld was my show at the time.
4
Friends was funny enough, but can't be in a class with *MASH, All In The Family, Frazier, Taxi, Seinfeld and other great shows from the earlier Golden Eras. You're right, though, that the actors had a great chemistry and were very talented. Having said that, one of the
critocisms that I think is right on, they had so little of a work life that it seemed utterly impossible.
2
For my money I'll take "Cheers" over "Friends" any day of the week--gentler, more sophisticated, better writing, real-er people--just far superior in general. It may be the mark of a good critic that he makes us re-think our perceptions of cultural artifacts like Friends, but on the few occasions when I've found myself watching an episode, I usually don't last more than 2 minutes before I reach for the remote because of the broadness and predictability of the dialogue and story.
4
Rachel Green will always be the hot girl in Friends. Seinfeld did it better though with its own resident hottie, Elaine Benes.
4
Also, there are no black people.
There, I said it.
8
I am somewhat taken aback by the large amount of "un-friendly" comments.
One of the best results of this series was being introduced to the gifted talent of David Schwimmer. I never heard of him prior to "Friends" and when I saw him in the HBO series, "Band of Brothers" I realized and appreciated his skill at being a comedic actor as well as a dramatic one.
He is so dang talented. And so is Matthew Perry. Both of these gents make comedy and drama look so easy.
59
@Marge Keller Schwimmer has done other roles, check him out in "Band of Brothers", where he did a magnificent job of playing a hated martinet who was, nonetheless, responsible for creating a band of men who fought together and kept each other alive. He was amazing.
1
@Marge Keller
You do realize David Schwimmer's character in "Band of Brothers" was more despised than the Nazis, right?
2
@Andy -
Yes I know that. I also read the book. The real Captain Sobel actually committed suicide after the war.
5
"Friends" endures for the same reason a lot of shows of its time do: people miss the '90s. Unlike the others--"Will & Grace," "Roseanne" (before she blew it), "Murphy Brown"--a reboot is unlikely because the cast members are no longer equal professionally. (When the 1978 Broadway musical "Ain't Misbehavin'" was revived a decade later with the original cast, the ensemble was unbalanced by Nell Carter having become a star in the meantime. Likewise, a revivified "Friends" would be unable to avoid becoming a Jennifer Anniston vehicle, however hard she might try to be one of the gang again.) An attempt to bring back the magic with a new cast probably would not work.
I personally wasn't a watcher, but the appeal for others doesn't escape me: an attractive cast playing essentially likable characters. Also, unlike "M*A*S*H," "Seinfeld," and "Modern Family," "Friends" evidently managed to avoid self-congratulation. Whether the show attains icon status like "Leave It to Beaver," "Gilligan's Island," or "Brady Bunch," with fan conventions, and cast members writing books about all the funny things that happened on set, what a family they were, and how they stay in touch (whether they actually do or not), remains to be seen.
Now if you'll excuse me, "I Love Lucy" is on.
2
Frasier is also available for streaming, and also 20+ years old, now, and--if you're going to go for monoculture and whitebread--way, way better than Friends, much more intelligent. Why can't the youth appreciate Frasier? Why don't college students wear FRASIER tee shirts with the little skyline of Seattle on them rather than their ridiculous FRIENDS tee shirts that we're seeing around campuses everywhere? Stop the madness! We need Eddie!
10
Are millennials so joyless that tweet so much effort and anger at harmless, yes harmless 25 year old sit-coms? I didn't spend 10 minutes on Girlfriends before I realized it wasn't my cup of tea. Jeez, get a life.
9
I doubt that many (if any) of the commenters here are millennials. And yet...
My favorite part of this show was the duck - and Joey saying "How you doin'?" Otherwise, I feel these were a group of characters committing micro-aggressions against each other. As well they should - these GenXers learned from their late baby boom brothers and sisters on Seinfeld (which I liked better, because there was so much absurdity in it). Awesome apartments, though.
12
Are all the ladies who’ve never watched the show yet are leaving comments and lurking just here for some Joey Tribbiani?
2
Watching Friends one would think that Manhattan apartments were not cockroach infested closets.
5
Why did I read this? Friends doesn't deserve this much thought.
7
This is satire, a spoof, right?
Right?
3
Who is this “we” that can’t stop watching it?? Was good back in the day, but I have never watched a rerun, nor would I want to. Another misleading story title from New York Times.
1
I missed out on Friends. I don't, didn't, have cable TV and I didn't pay any attention to broadcast TV. However I did watch an episode not too long ago to see if it was any good. It is lame. The humor is like a wet dish rag. These perpetual cult inducing TV shows are a symptom of a pathology in society. Marketers push them because they make money for someone, not because they are good for anybody.
37
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
". . . I didn't pay any attention to broadcast TV. However I did watch an episode not too long ago to see if it was any good. It is lame. The humor is like a wet dish rag."
I think a similar assessment could be made for those old flip phones compared to the latest version of today's Apple iPhones. Everything should be viewed in context to the times in which they first appeared.
What seems "lame" today was pretty darn hilarious back then.
However, I do understand and can appreciate that not all humor or comedy is viewed through the same pair of lenses.
10
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Glad someone else gets it. I couldn't get through an episode.
5
@Marge Keller
The humor in Fraser is still funny. It's just better. Each one of those episodes was only 20 minutes.
9
Over rated. Dated. not particularly funny. Mediocre.
4
That's odd, that you can't stop watching it. I could never tolerate even three seconds of this travesty. It was NEVER funny. It was always formulaic. It was a bad portrait of people that age in that time and it was, I repeat, never funny. It was painful to watch and I couldn't stab the button on my remote fast enough to change the channel.
6
A sibling once said to me "you know what I love about New York? It shelters you from the people who would never want to live here." Friends is the perfect show for these folks.
18
While often very funny, the persistent vein of anti-intellectualism in the show was something I could never get around. Every - single - time Ross would start to talk about science or paleontology, the rest of the cast would feign extreme boredom or exasperation.
And they did not do it to be playful or cute. The tone of it was truly mocking. Ha ha ha ha ha, science boring and just for nerd losers. Please.
This extended to Phoebe, as well. Was it "funny" that Phoebe was flaky to the point of seeming borderline mentally ill? Maybe. But the writers and producers allowed Phoebe's woo to overpower Ross' reason and rationality.
And so what was the message? This goes beyond not taking a TV show too seriously, because America's soft cultural power extends around the world, and still does. Anti-science, anti-reason should NOT be one of our biggest exports.
63
I would add that in Phoebe, they painted every vegetarian/environmentalist as a flaky idiot.
16
@David
Being one who is extensively educated in science I didn’t perceive the show negatively in this way and I didn’t take it as anti-science. Geeks can laugh at themselves.
The characters are exaggerated versions of types....it’s a sitcom, not NOVA.
13
I came across a great (Google-able) article from 2016 related to this by David Hopkins called “How ‘Friends’ triggered the downfall of Western Civilization.” It’s a great defense of Ross’s intellect and I think, given your position, you’d enjoy its content. It takes shots at the show overall, but I loved its support of Ross and I think it really backs uo what you’ve said here too.
6
Why do some proudly proclaim they never watched the show, and "never will," as a kind of bragging?
What's the point?
76
@David Henry
Because it really is an accomplishment in American society to not be addicted to TV. How many people do you know who do not watch television, at all. When Friends was broadcast for the first time I didn't even own a television, for several years. Nobody in America doesn't watch TV.
6
@David Henry: That they're better than you.
(I watched the show; I'm not better than you.)
9
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus: More "I'm better than you." I haven't owned a television in years either. And when I did, I wasn't addicted. Good grief.
8
Why oh why did the Times, some years back, begin to uncritically embrace the most banal aspects of pop "culture"? A serious essay about a silly, disposable sitcom that featured vapid if quirky characters--whose two-dimensionality hardly reflected any realistic, mature portrayal of young "adults"?
Just compare the show--which, admittedly, I could only bear to watch, out of idle "curiosity," a few times--with the biting irony and sharp satire of, say, most Seventies-era Norman Lear sitcoms. "Friends" is excellent comedy"!? Try SCTV or "Fawlty Towers"--which are worth writing about.
3
oh, boy. having never eaten a McDonald's burger, I thought I was out of the culture, but now realize that since I've never seen this TV show, either, I will probably be kicked off the planet. Darn! And I was having such a good time here despite my obvious lacks. Oh, well. You can't have everything, now, can you?
Seriously, I do mean what I just wrote, but, I will try to find a way to watch this show since I like to laugh and if it is funny I promise I will join in the good natured laughter, but still never eat a McDonaald's burger. As the old movie title said, I Want To Live.
1
Cab't stop? I can't start, it sickens me.
3
Three words: “Let’s play ... Bamboozle!”
I was a fan as were several of my co-workers. As someone started to describe an overly complex proposal for some project or other, one of us would inevitably ask: “Is there a hopping bonus.”
5
I never understood why people liked this show. Not then, and not now. Unfortunately some friends and family could not get enough of it, so I do know what I'm about here:
You can talk about cast chemistry, but the writing was mediocre, most of the characters were insufferable, and, as Jello Biafra memorably put it: "OUR friends have NEVER seen the inside of a Manhattan apartment THAT big, have you???"
67
@Ben
Good point. I forgot just how unbelievably unrealistic they made young New York life look. You don't have friends over in New York. Not unless they need a place to sleep or you're going someplace else. We meet on the street.
9
@Ben Gosh. This comment alone will kill any future "Friends" reruns!
2
@Ben
I know this show has it's defenders, but I just never got it. Short story is, I just did not find it funny.
7
Both Friends and Seinfeld are horrible shows. Friends was by far the lamer of the two, while Seinfeld is only humorous to New Yorkers who think the world revolves around them.
3
Can't stop watching it? I never watched it.
6
Can't stop or can't start?
3
I can't stop watching it because I've never watched one episode of "Friends" and never intend to. My two daughters watched it as teenagers and I kind of felt sorry for them.
11
I’ve never seen an episode either, and after reading this, I’m glad I haven’t.
1
@Mooseontheloose Cool, glad you bothered to drop in just to share that fact. Do you think you're special, or somehow superior to everyone else who loves the show?
Do you want some kind of special treat?
8
@Mooseontheloose thank you for your interesting contribution to the discussion.
3
As a flight attendant who works the European/NY routes weekly, I am amazed how many Europeans are watching it on the plane with their NYC guidebooks on the tray table in front of them. I sometimes think that this show is responsible for much of the tourism in the city in the last few decades. After a week as
a tourist, I often wonder if they come away more enchanted or disappointed in the city after having a unrealistic version in their heads for so long.
6
Curious what you think when you walk by someone traveling to Terre Haute watching Parks and Recreation?!
5
I believe the popularity and endurance of.Friends is because people long for a group of friends who know you, support you and know each other, rather like a family. People are lonely and isolated today. I also believe the same holds true for the popularity of family shows, loving, crazy families. Movies like My big fat wedding and tv shows like Parenthood. Unrealistic perhaps but comforting in today's harsh reality.
28
Wow -- a lot of negative comments from self-proclaimed "Friends" haters. If you hated the show so much, why did you spend the time reading the article? While I initially avoided the show when it first premiered in 1994, (it DID feel formulaic and shallow that first season) the show actually improved as the years went on. By it's peak middle period (seasons 5 thru 8), it had become a sharply written sitcom with a cast that had perfected both their performances and chemistry.
10
I remember watching it in the 90s and enjoyed the show, but I have absolutely no interest in watching it again. It maybe of interest to a new generation of viewers. However, it’s a waste of time to watch it again.
One of the many shows that upon concluding its run, I am amazed at the number of years it was actually on the air.
4
One of the trio of the worst TV shows about NYC ever made, the others being HBO's Girls and Making it in America. They all presented an idealized vision of NYC that tweens through early twenty-somethings might imagine life is like for the loafing class that sometimes temporarily get inconvenienced by working for a while between visits to kitschy or hipster venues. As a former resident, the NYC based shows that always appealed to me were the ones that captured the incongruous funny things that happened that were unlikely to happen in most other places. Seinfeld and a few other shows nailed it, the others (like those previously mentioned) were walking around in a fog hoping they stumbled into it.
21
@Kevin and as a never-resident but lifelong fan of NYC, I nominate Barney Miller as the best show about NYC ever.
3
@karen Probably the best cop show ever
@Kevin -- my brother the detective would tell you that The Wire was the best cop show ever.
I grew up on NBC's Thursday night sitcoms in the 80s and into the 90s. In fact, my early user names for many social media accounts, Thursday Girl, reflects my love of the lost genre.
I was in my early twenties when Seinfeld and Friends were in their prime. I definitely preferred Seinfeld as it was quirkier, edgier and seemed to capture the zeitgeist of the time a little better.
But now? I'm not surprised to find that it's Friends that has the greater durability. Just like the old sitcom reruns from the 50s and 60s I watched as a kid, it was the family-style shows that endured as opposed to anything topical for the times.
Seinfeld was both a product and reflection of its times. If you weren't there in the moment, you probably won't understand a lot of the nuances. Friends, on the other hand, is about relationships. And, at least so far, those remain a constant from era to era.
8
The key to not watching "Friends" 25 years later is to never have started 25 years before.
20
@Johnny C. What’s the key to commenting on articles about shows you’ve never watched and presumably have no interest in?
7
Lately the TV in our cafeteria at work has been running back-to-back episodes of Friends every day. It's no more watchable now than it was when it was new. I've taken to eating outside.
24
Worst show ever. I watched several episodes when it was on and never laughed. Friends is Dane Cook comedy.
16
Agreed. Unwatchable.
2
“Friends” is the next best thing to watching a Woody Allen movie where people of color don’t exist in New York City.
4
“Can’t stop watching it”? “Great cast?”
This show made me, a white person of the generation portrayed, ashamed of my generation. Shallow, entitled, clueless about the real world. Not even funny! And history has proven this true - it is all about white privilege.
Many, many people despise Friends.
29
If you watch “Friends” reruns today, free of the echo of the superior humor of the just-completed “Cheers” and the far more satisfying “Seinfeld,” what stands out is the episode to episode consistency of the characters. Credit the writers for not betraying their creations. The acting was always glib, facile and finally disappointing. The legacy includes a fealty to augmented audience laughter that continues to sabotage the work of Chuck Lorre among others. Shows that leave the laughter to the viewers are inherently more deserving of panegyrics like this article.
5
"WE" can't stop watching it???
Have no desire to ever start.
16
Friends had a recurring joke about their neighbor, the so-called "ugly fat guy". Anyone who wasn't white and beautiful in the conventional Hollywood sense was a nonentity. The show wasn't funny - it was mean spirited. I often wondered how the actors could cash their $1million per episode paychecks without any guilty conscience?
23
@Saint Leslie Ann Of Geddes
It was ugly naked guy. And part of the joke was that he walked around naked.
14
@Saint Leslie Ann Of Geddes
He was called "ugly naked guy". Not fat.
10
@Don H
There was a flashback episode that revealed he used to be called "cute naked guy," but then he started, regrettably, to "let himself go."
Awful when it first aired. Even worse 25 years on. The show is legitimately helpful for weeding out imbeciles in a group though, so I am grateful for that!
16
Can't stop watching??!!!
Who's "we"?
19
Hmm.... A cast of vapid, exclusively white characters in the most diverse city in the country? Can't stop watching it? If memory serves, I stopped watching after about three episodes. I had no interest in it then, and I certainly wouldn't watch it now.
22
The thing is, unfortunately, that was realistic. One memory during the show’s run is sitting with a group of grad school friends in DC and several griping about how white the show was. I took a look around the table-all but the international student were white. Perhaps the show reflected reality. I think it’s easier to get mad at a show than to do the real work in real life.
7
As far as I'm concerned, Friends is just a monument to white bread. I've tried to watch it at various times over the years (out of morbid curiosity), but I just couldn't get past the contrived, cloying, just-so cutesy-ness baked in to the characters and the script. It was a sitcom for people who like happy news, edgy stuff for young people who might occasionally dream of maybe coloring outside the lines but only a little, topical for the kind of people who later were to make Mark Zuckerberg wealthy.
If you like it, fine, but high achievement it ain't.
11
The entire cast is so annoying. I watched 10 minutes of the first episode, and I am proud to say that I never watched it again.
11
Having heard the buzz about it from a few friends years ago, I tuned in twice and found the sit com not only silly, but repulsive, it made me wonder about my friends.
11
What fascinated me about Friends, and kept me going back for more, was it’s immense popularity. I thought, surely a show this popular, with such a loyal following, had to be good. But every episode that I watched seemed truly mediocre - fantastically mediocre, in fact - and unfunny and boring and cliched and etc., yet the show’s popularity was undeniable. What was I missing? I liked just about every other successful sitcom out there; Friends, however, was in a class of its own in terms of boredom and lack of creativity. And yet, here we are with more praise, years later, despite all this time to reflect on its cynical, formulaic mundanity. I’m older and duller of mind these days, maybe I’ll watch it again.
23
I always thought friends was a mindless, junky knockoff of Seinfeld. The scripts were mediocre, the acting was terrible (despite having some good actors), and all of the humor was forced.
It's impossible to not talk about Seinfeld and Friends together--the former was just so much better that it made watching Friends drab and unenjoyable.
4
@D --
And I always thought Seinfeld was populated by a bunch of egotistical jerks whose only pleasure in life was making other people's lives more miserable than their own.
But apparently, a lot of people find meanness funny. Who am I to judge?
2
Friends was good. Seinfeld was a masterpiece
5
Let me not parse words: "Friends" was a dumb show, absorbed by bland, generic characters and obvious humor that played to a comfortable, mainstream, suburban culture that had all of a sudden became intrigued by the real, raw and distinctive character of New York. "Friends" is to entertainment as "Starbucks" is to coffee shops.
16
Never understood the attraction.
9
I tried to watch it but couldn't. it was awful. Recently started to watch some reruns. Lasted two episodes. Utterly unwatchable. Take away the laugh track and there's nothing.
8
it was a suburban teenage girl's fantasy of a white safe urban environment where adolescent social drama comprised all of the world's problems. offensive then, offensive now.
10
I believe the show has a theme song. I might recognize that. I can say I watched the show for a total of 2 minutes over the years. It never grabbed my attention. Perhaps I have some kind of sitcom autism that leaves me with a preference for waving my hands and clicking uncontrollably.
1
Friends is the most over-rated sitcom ever to be produced. I watched one season and that was it for me.
9
I moved to NYC in 1991 when the city's reputation in the Midwest was that it was irredeemably dangerous and nasty (many of my family and friends thought my decision to move was willfully perverse and tantamount to suicide).
By the late '90s, the city's reputation completely flipped. I couldn't keep up with all the requests from the Midwest to stay at my apartment for a fun weekend. When I married my Connecticut-born bride in Soho in February 1999, far more Midwesterners showed up than Connecticutians.
Now you could chalk up this change in reputation to the crack epidemic dying out, a surging economy, or Guiliani's war on crime.
But, I'm sorry, the change in NYC's perception was just too fast and too striking to lay the cause on those more gradual phenomena. My money is on "Friends" and "Seinfeld", two shows I didn't have time to watch while I was working and playing hard in '90s NYC. But I love to watch them in reruns now that I've moved away (even though I can't help but scoff at the sizes of their apartments (and coffee shops!)).
10
The concept of "Friends" was taken from the all-Black Comedy cast "Livin' Single," whose original names was supposed to be "Friends."
The producers of "Friends" stole the concept, made the entire cast White in the most diverse city in the country, and made millions for the cast, and probably approaching Billions for the producers, as the show is still being sold.
There is nothing genius or orginal about this show. It's pure cultural appropriation.
11
@Samuel Ross-Lee Right, because before the idea of a show based on the social interactions of a group of people was a completely unique idea that had never been done before!
12
I watched "Friends" when it originally aired, but when I recently screened a couple of episodes on a long flight I was stunned by how poorly it holds up.
If younger viewers today enjoy it as a non-threatening, vapid fantasy of a simpler time before Trump, the climate crisis, smartphones and woke-ness, I understand the appeal.
8
@Randy Its highly ironic that you refer to the show as a fantasy of a simpler time before Trump because the world of Friends is Trump's ultimate fantasy, where everyone is white, superficial and there are generally lots of tall, blond bimbos available to be gropped without consequence. I don't see how anyone who voted against Trump could in any way rationalize watching Friends.
3
@Saint Leslie Ann Of Geddes Thank you for illustrating why people want to escape from the brittle hostility of political correctness.
It's just TV.
4
I never really cared for it. Out of curiosity I watched the pilot episode last year and, after 10 minutes, found it unwatchable. It is so wrong to place Friends in the same class with Seinfeld and The Simpsons. Those shows were clever,Friends is the anticlever.
17
@Mark
As I read through these comments, I am reminded of Newton Minow's remark about TV as a "vast wasteland."
1
Friends came out an age where it was still a novelty that young people were waiting til their late 20s/30s to marry, and in an interim phase trying to turn their "friends" into the families they grew up with. Monica and Chandler were matriarich/patriarch figures, the other 4 differing levels of maturity and sensibility that you would find in a family. The characters in post-internet shows that came after like How I met your mother, big bang theory, don't fall into a "family" structure. That's my take on it anyway.
1
I lived in NYC most of the time that Friends was on and watched it periodically. But when my kids discovered it in middle school it became a family staple - and it finally got us off of Full House reruns which we watched after their dad left because the dads stayed and ran the house. Friends was just joy - consistently hilarious, with characters that synced really well together. I think it is and was a gem of American television. Even though it seems nostalgic now when we are in need of downtime, a Trump free moment, it is the perfect anecdote.
33
@Annie P
It is still on Channel 5 in the UK and I try never to miss it even though I know all the episodes and most of the dialogue. It is my substitute for Cheers.
7
@Dave Steffe And the U.K. episodes are some of the very best! Hugh Laurie telling Rachel, "It's clear you were on a break." The wedding disasters. Branson's cameos. London, baby!
4
The least New York show ever made. With these characters, the show could have been in Chicago or Denver or Cincinnati or Portland or L.A. or any other city, but not New York.
21
No problem not watching it. I haven't had a TV in over twenty years. Haven't missed a thing as far as I can tell. Amazing to me that television still exists. Pull the plug and see what else is going on.
3
One of the things that made "Seinfeld" so good was that it wasn't a formula sitcom. Larry David had a rule for the writers, "No hugging, no learning." "Friends" took "Seinfeld" and turned it into a formula sitcom. "Friends" wasn't a bad sitcom, but it was a formula sitcom.
15
@David Loved Seinfeld, hated Friends. The characters on Friends were all annoying. Your comment is spot on.
6
@MMNY --
I find it deeply ironic that anyone who claims to have "loved" Seinfeld would call the characters on Friends annoying.
1
well...that was 5 minutes I'll never get back.
Here, let me offer the REAL reason we can't stop watching it:
Because it's ubiquitously on multiple channels all day and all night, and because the only alternatives are "reality" tv, bad tv, and worse tv.
It's not that Friends is special. It's that everything else is so EspecialLY bad.
18
Never watched Friends. Never watched Seinfeld. I hate that sort of strained, performance heavy style where the characters are waiting for a reaction.
6
25 years after its premier it's the number two most watched show on Netflix. Any chance all the people dismissing it while admitting they've never even watched it might be missing something? Naw! Anything that popular can't be good. Right?
11
@APH
Popularity is often a leading indicator of mediocrity.
5
Experience has taught me that is pretty much true.
1
Compared to the more 'real' NYness of recent cable shows High Maintenance (HBO) & Broad City (CC) among others, Friends looks like a quaint after-school special for the fly-over nation to enjoy an urbane, 'eccentric' lifestyle....no wonder it's on Nickelodeon now. Pure banality- at least Seinfeld (which it stole several plot lines- including the broken couple one) had an edge, and somewhat unlikable people who really worked (albeit in comedy, publishing, baseball middle-manager, etc.).
10
@Scott
"Friends looks like a quaint after-school special for fly-over nation to enjoy an urbane, 'eccentric' lifestyle...".
How smug. Try looking at a map, there are dozens of large cities in "fly-over" country and eccentricities are often how people deal in real life.
Even we peons between the coasts enjoy Seinfeld and Broad City, btw.
3
There is something special about someone who opens with “never watched it and never will” and goes on for 150 more words. Obviously much too busy to squeeze in a little joy.
63
Most popular doesn't mean best, the writing was never as clever as Frasier, it never captured the cultural zeitgeist like Seinfeld or represented a game-changer to the medium like the Office UK. It should be considered in everyone's top 50 sitcoms of all time, but no one's top 10.
Personally, I still think the first 3 seasons remain very sharp and funny, and the characters are likeable and relatable. Post-season 5, the quality really dipped as progressively jokes got cheaper, cast became 2 dimensional and it lost its groundedness. I'd say Ross became one of the most insufferable lead characters in a sitcom up until Ted Mosby and Lilly appeared in HIMYM.
6
I am surprised to read so many negative comments about this article, as well as about the show itself. As a fan of the show, I found it to be pleasant, often funny, and yes sort of a fantasy. I lived in New York City then, and still do, and even though some of the aspects of it were a little far-fetched, it is TV people. It is a TV show, and was there for entertainment. It’s television. Don’t take it so seriously.
73
To be honest, I couldn’t stand Friends. The characters were infantile stereotypes, the acting was lacking in subtlety, the comedy was contrived and simplistic. In contrast, Seinfeld was a masterpiece, the sitcom at its finest. Maybe it’s a generational thing—people I know who liked Friends are post-boomers.
46
@Artie
Seinfeld has millions of post-boomer fans as well.
4
@Artie
Seinfeld was, to me, a bunch of pathetic, verging on middle-aged, narcisstic, whiney losers whose only joy in life came from making other people miserable.
What's not to like about THAT?
3
I can't stop watching "Friends" because I never started watching it.
22
Being Gen X in the 90's could get a bit maudlin. 'Friends' was a nice, flighty reprieve.
9
Here's why "we" can't stop watching it?
Who is "we?"
I know what it is, but I have never watched it. If I have a lobotomy, then I might watch it.
35
Is this supposed to be an intellectual discourse on a worthless pointless TV show? A cheap production vehicle to steer tons of cash to the pockets of some gang that does not give a hoot if the whole nation is deaf dumb and blind? Not happening. I am so pleased that I can only with some difficulty name a character from any TV sitcom.
"Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out." - Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
15
I made sure to read this entire article before commenting. Still, I’m no fan of friends. It took place in NYC, right? I seem to remember a very big deal being made when Ross dated a Black woman. That spoke volumes to me. Diversity & inclusion need not apply....
8
@Gucci Marmot I don't think you remember very well. The group made nothing of her race but did think she was gorgeous and out of his league, especially intellectually, as she was a more well-decorated scientist than Ross.
3
The stupidest show I ever saw, and the obnoxious laugh track was so sad. One episode was enough for me.
27
A lot of people who dislike friends claim to have watched few episodes. The comedy was premised upon knowing the characters, their likes, dislikes, relationships, and history. Without watching enough episodes you can never know these things, and therefore never understand the comic genius going on before your eyes. There were so many great scenes where the dialog was quick, sharp, and witty, and the great jokes just flowed one after another in such a torrid current that I nearly wet my pants laughing.
17
I disagree. To borrow from Conrad, television has to justify itself in every scene. If a show is good it's quickly apparent. You don't have to lay down a certain number of episodes to enjoy it.
5
@Mike Page "premised upon knowing the characters, their likes, dislikes, relationships, and history".. Pretty much goes for any other sitcom or really any character you meet in real life. I don't know why Friends should get a special pass for this.
2
I think that I have watched a grand total of 1 episode of Friends from start to finish. That was enough. Cutesy, juvenile, and boring.
I have never watched a complete episode of 2 1/2 men. It was a horrible, nasty show.
Ditto for How I Met Your Mother, That 70's Show, and The Big Bang Theory.
I guess I'm just not very hip.
8
@Steve So with you. I can't understand how one could *not* feel constantly insulted while watching this stuff.
1
I'm with Carolyn C. With Friends like that, who needs enemies?
Very annoying people, much like Seinfeld.
4
What garbage! Totally unrealistic characters in situations that would never happen, not to mention (which I'll mention) the lame, predicable, juvenile alleged humor. Tried to watch it a couple of times and never was able to stomach an entire episode. Just goes to show how brain dead most of the viewing public is.
20
Back in the day, a co-worker raved about the show. I watched about 10 minutes' worth and couldn't stomach the boring cutesy-poo-ness. Never trusted her recommendations again.
10
Still with the "whiteness" and "entitlement"? Political correctness is just the pits.
14
@mainliner some people just refer to to as treating others decently. Sorry if that offensive to you.
White, bland, and boring. Bunch of yuppies uptown. No ethnic people watch this show full stop.
9
@Cinart I qualify as ethnic. Love the show. Different folks, different strokes. Vive le difference!
5
@Cinart
I suppose I need to turn in my ethnic card, then. I'm Asian and I've always liked the show.
6
Pooh-poohing pop culture always makes the shallow feel deep. No surprise that such a large number of NYT readers don't get Friends. I suppose it lacks the pretension and effete snobbery needed to get your typical pseudo-intillectual juiced up.
77
Whiny, entitled white people living in huge apartments. Fascinating and timeless, mmhmm.
10
I’m with the majority of comments here—never watched it, never wanted to. Being a person around the age of the characters when the show came out, who was actually living and working in NYC, it was instantly plain how artificial it was. The apartment alone was enough to put me off, since it was downright ridiculous that those characters lived there (as any non-rich New Yorker knew), and the endless time on the couch at the coffee shop. Then add in the characters: 3 women, 3 men, all white, all nearly perfect-looking. It was impossible to imagine these characters ever took the subway, or ran into a homeless person, or had a friend (or even a colleague) who was a person of color. It all just seemed ludicrous to me; I wasn’t willing to suspend that much disbelief.
16
This article ignores that overwhelmingly, kids 20 and under can't relate to, and even hate, the show Friends; they can't relate to the sarcasm, infidelity, shallowness, lack of queer diversity (Ross's ex wife, a Victoria's Secret type blond whose identify is mentioned but not displayed doesn't cut it) and ethnic cleansing (read Whites only allowed). Kids today are more emotionally mature than the Gen Xers who were sucked into the the superficial world of Pottery Barn and Friends. That the show has no contemporary resonance is a tribute to today's youth.
4
@Saint Leslie Ann Of Geddes
Thank goodness I'm 23, then. Just a few years younger and I'd be stuck being a humorless, self-righteous cretin forced to apply an unattainable wokeness yardstick to a simple television show.
8
I applaud the effort to appreciate, enjoy, and laud a show rather than to engage in tedious (and obvious) social criticism. But Friends?! About as funny as any other mediocre sitcom, from Happy Days to Laverne and Shirley. No thank you. Now, Three’s Company...that was genius.
3
Hands down, the most over-rated show in the history of television.
37
@Alejandro Forte As far as I'm concerned this is a scientific fact.
2
@Alejandro Forte
I thought that honor was awarded to I Love Lucy.
1
I stopped watching after the first week when I saw the outlandish and impossible NYC apt.
6
@Mike Monica‘s apartment was always explained to have been her grandmothers rent controlled apartment. Believe it or not Mike, these situations do happen in New York City, much more often than you would think, or believe. It was plausible, given that premise.
19
@Mike
I never knew that was supposed to be NYC. Did they ever show the city? I know Seinfeld was shot in CA with a fake NYC street. It was obvious fakery but made sense.
3
@D Cohen: Was it ever explained how she got her name on the lease? There actually are laws about this, and landlords - although they may be venal - are not idiots.
3
Never watched it in the first place. Guess I just don't get it.
6
@Steve - if you haven't watched it how would you get it??
3
Friends would last less than season today. Not even remotely "woke" enough. Part of the pleasure (most? all?) in watching it today is nostalgia for days when not being "woke" was ok, when it was (gasp!) ok to enjoy the silly antics of a bunch of upper middle class educated white people with basically zero social consciousness on display.
6
I'm guessing you've never actually watched it, right?
2
Meh.
“Friends,” like its contemporaries of the early 1990s such as “Mad About You” and “Seinfeld,” showcased self-absorption and egotism taken to their most extreme levels. If you didn’t get the joke, or if you openly admitted that you didn’t watch — or horrors! didn’t like these shows — you weren’t part of the Cool Kids Club. Too bad, so sad. I saw “Friends” et.al. more as pretentious status symbols among a certain age/income demographic rather than groundbreaking TV. Still do.
If I’m forced to watch any comedy TV from that decade, give me “Frasier” any day. And if I’m forced to watch *any* sitcom, I’ll take anything from that genre’s golden era — the 1970s — with all its shows that have stood the test of time, most notably CBS’s Saturday night schedule.
1
Maybe it was based on the idea of "laugh and the world laughs with you", but I now find any show with canned laughter virtually impossible to watch, partly because there are so many exchanges, while humorous, I consider unworthy of the fake laughs attributed to them. Laugh tracks feel like an insult, an attempt to command me not only to find a particular gag funny but then to tell me how to express it. I only ever caught a glimpse of Friends and it failed to capture my attention. It will not be possible to change that now.
4
@Roger C I went to a live studio recording of the show once, and we were all sitting in the audience and yes, laughing. So I don’t know why people think there was a laugh track, when clearly it was shot in front of a live audience.
17
I assure you the laughs can easily be sweetened in postproduction. They’re not written in stone when the shoot takes place.
1
Who is “we” who can’t stop watching? Certainly not the adults in the room. C’mon.
8
Huh? "We" can't stop watching it? I've never watched a full episode of this bland, unfunny, predictable, saccharine, boring show in my life.
11
Wow, that's a lot of adjectives for never having watched it.
7
@APH - Chandler could not have said it better.
1
You want comedy? Search YouTube for Soupy Sales. Yes I know it’s a different genre; I just want people to rediscover this gem.
2
Friends don't let their friends watch Friends.
27
What's this "we"? I didn't even watch Seinfeld... sitcoms have been dead to me since "Taxi."
2
I'm, in the "65 and up" group. I've binged all the seasons ten times. "Friends" is my mac & cheese, the ultimate comfort food. One night in the middle of perhaps my eighth binge? my husband heard me talking in my sleep. He quickly started recording and interviewed me about my relationship with the show. It was rich. I informed him I would be spending Passover at Jennifer Aniston's house because, yes!, she is Jewish (she is not) and that we were very close. I would be suggesting a costume change, having decided that all of the characters needed to wear hats. The "interview" lasted about ten minutes.
8
Can’t stop?
I’ve seen maybe two or three half episodes.
5
Have to admit, I was never a fan and accepted the (admittedly unfair ) truism that it was "Seinfeld for simpletons." My kids, when teens, enjoyed the reruns and those same kids hate/hated Seinfeld. Not sure what that means, if anything, in the grand scheme of TV sitcom analysis.
1
I've noticed at college in the student lounge that small groups of students watch Friends when it's on some cable channel. It's their Gilligan's Island. The show that was on in the background as they grew up or their parents liked it and watched the reruns. There are also students that watch The Office on Comedy Central. Completely different kids - nerdy, sharp, a little too sarcastic for their own good.
1
While the characters in "Friends" might be interesting enough to write a script about it, the actor and the acting is terrible.
I watched a few episodes back then and surely would not tune in again.
Why is it still around? Because it's easy TV. It's lightweight, nothing big to think about. Doesn't take a stand, doesn't take on critical subjects. The jokes are predictable as is the storyline.
6
I couldn't stop watching "Friends" back in the day because I had such a crush on Matthew Perry.
The show was free and funny and it made me laugh out loud for 30 minutes every Thursday evening. That's more than what I get most days now.
25
Such nastiness, not to mention absence of logic! Just because someone enjoys watching a half-hour sitcom doesn’t mean they don’t read or enjoy other intellectual pursuits.
Perhaps the finger-pointers are the ones who need to grow up.
16
@Socrates Friend
This comment is as rude and hurtful as many I have read by your friend, Socrates.
3
@Ken - Thanks Ken. You're a good "friend".
3
I have never been afflicted with the desire to watch this show more that what I already saw in its first go-around. No thanks, I'm good.
3
I haven't watched an episode of Friends since high school. I don't have any desire to revisit the show now. I never cared for it. If I watched the show at all, it's because the reruns were on after Simpsons but before Seinfeld. That and watching anything is preferable to doing homework.
Television from the network era all suffered the same problem: It wasn't designed to end. In fiction, you have to pick a beginning and an end for any book. These boundaries are arbitrary. The fictional world continues to exist on either side of the author's creative decisions.
However, television, especially situational comedy, never attempts to address the issue. A truly successful sitcom isn't meant to end. It just goes on forever in an endless repetition of some formulaic pretense. You might as well watch Jeopardy instead. Game shows never die.
Even in the realm of situational comedies though, Friends is particularly annoying. First is the cloying sentimentalism predominant throughout the series. I guess there's an audience for cheesy. More importantly though, the show broke one of the cardinal rules of television sitcoms: It became self-referential. One might say recursive.
What made The Simpsons work? The show reboots after almost every episode. There is rarely an instance where the show even references former episodes much less relies on their plot and ending. Friends flirted with serial Soap Opera placed in physical comedy. That made the show absolutely unbearable in my opinion.
8
I haven't watched a rerun of Friends ever. In retrospect the show was offensive because it had no diversity at all.
1
@Brian Handel I felt the same way about "Cosby". No diversity. Also, "Good Times", and "What's Happening". Same with "The Jeffersons".
9
@Steve The Jeffersons? Tom Willis, Mr. Bentley, and Ralph the doorman were cast members. No way a show about rich, privileged New Yorkers in a high-rise could not have white people. Same with Cosby. White people sprinkled throughout the Huxtables' brownstone world as they encountered them at work, school, and in the neighborhood. Not the same for Good Times and What's Happening since they were shows about the underclass in the city, ergo few if any white people (believe me, I know; I lived it). So every show you mentioned was honest about the racial situation it portrayed. Friends, not so much.
Yes, we CAN stop watching it. In fact, I never started watching it. Not a single episode.
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@Rich The only reason I can't stop watching it is because I never started watching it.
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@Rich
Same here: not a single episode. And I don't feel deprived or somehow out of order.
6
Me neither. I never thought of an evening, "I'm going to turn on the TV and watch Friends." It was impossible to escape references to it, like "The Rachel," and they were always dumb.
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Yesterday, I randomly watched the Thanksgiving football game episode from way in the beginning. I laughed like one who never saw it before. And I rooted for the ladies. It is still a pleasure to watch.
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I could have "liked" Friends more if it had been a little more NYC urban, like they lived in one of NYC's major shooting galleries like Brownsville or East New York and would reminisce about trying to get to the subway without being mugged or harassed. Or, if they lived in one of the minor shooting galleries.
I think occasional episodes about the femmes dealing with flashers on the subways (like some of my Hunter students had/have to) would've added some zest, I think, or a dash of urban reality – or some real challenges for the writers
Of, if one night, they decided to go slumming' at one of those bars where only armored plated Ubers would dare to go. I've only watched occasional re-runs and only to the first commercial break so it's quite possible I really missed some good stuff.
5
it was ok for a year, then it got dated real fast.
i dont know why its so popular now....it has no edge....i think it's because its something of a cult classic- its so 90's and so dated, it's fun to watch for those who grew up afterwards. like the 70's is for us baby boomers- the 70's culture, esp clothes, was so insane, yet we look back fondly.
6
Friends was a great show but nothing will ever surpass Seinfeld.
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@Sue Amen to that and all hail the true genius of Seinfeld! I have to say I found Frasier much funnier and smarter than Friends. I will never understand why this show is such a hit.
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@Karla
Frasier was well written and well cast except for Frasier himself. He was too reactive and loud.
Although he was great on Cheers.
1
I always found Friends profoundly bland. I preferred Seinfeld, as the writers frequently ventured out into unsafe waters. I can see it being a great show for teenagers though, then and now. Life will always be fun and comfortable, and we will surrounded by friends who will never desert us.
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One word....PIVOT!
That’s how you know a show has stood the test of time.
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I am fascinated by comments that young people supposedly see Friends as "bland." Meanwhile the popular sitcoms of the current era could not possible be more bland. i.e. Modern Family and Big Bang Theory. Those are Generic recycled comedies. The only time Friends stumbles is when it goes for straight drama, which is thankfully one out of 8 episodes or so.
4
Never watched it; never will. We have real friends.
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I can't watch Friends. I've never seen the appeal. The stars were too shrill and there was no nuance to the comedy - just cheap one-liners mostly. imo, Frasier (basically same age) was a far better sitcom from the era.
I watched Frasier over xmas last year and it holds up much better than Friends, despite having a similarly non-diverse cast.
24
I was just discussing this show with my teenage son. We're both very confused by its popularity--especially among kids his age. It's a bland, mediocre sitcom, period. But I guess it's like a security blanket for lots of people in this terrifying time we live in.
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@minkybear
Agreed. It's why I watch Golden Girls every night at bedtime, although for it's time, GG was a ground-breaking show with much better writing.
2
@nom de guerre My security blanket is The Great British Baking Show.
2
It had little to no diversity, the characters had unrealistically large apartments for the jobs they held, and at times it was "cute," but what cannot be denied is that these were six incredibly talented young people who worked as a true ensemble, all keeping their egos in check during a grueling 10-year schedule. I am a huge fan of Seinfeld as well, and it may be the superior show, but there's something very comforting about coming home late from work, putting on Friends, and sharing so many laughs with my husband and daughter.
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@Kathy McAdam Hahn Unfortunately, Seinfeld has a nasty, selfish streak running through it. The ending episode nailed it. That's why, despite it's being entertaining, it never had the comfort of Friends.
5
I thought this was a lovely write up and, already, the comments here are ready to rip the show to pieces. It all highlights why I do keep my local NYC cable packages: I’m exhausted and overwhelmed by the seriousness of practically everything now, including TV. I end most nights by watching exactly the formula the author suggests to here: flipping my remote (yes, I have one!) to Seinfeld followed by Friends. These are not perfect shows but I’ll pay for cable forever if it means I can end my day calmly reminiscing to sitcoms. It sure beats sitting on a high horse, endlessly tallying the ways we’ve wronged each other. Don’t we do that enough all day?
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@A Well-stated, and amen!
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@A
I am no techie but I believe remotes are still a thing.
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@caljn this is likely a reference to the author positing "I'll bet you don't even have a remote at this point."
1
Am I the only one who never watched? The few I did I found silly.
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I’ve never watched it. It’s a cultural icon to a slice of the citizenry. That aside it’s incredible how much cultural icons such as this have shaped cosmopolitan living.
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@LFK I watched maybe six episodes. I was in my 20's, so I was the "right age" for it, but it was too cornball for me.
ER was my thing.
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@LFK
I too never watched "Friends". Maybe because I was already entering my 40's. Or maybe because I was already an avid "Seinfeld" fan. I just found "Friends" very, very shallow, completely lacking the wit and setup complexity of "Seinfeld". But as other commenters note, it satisfied a large segment of the public who wanted nothing more engaging.
15
How was the coffee shop couch always available to them?
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@Mike S Because the world revolved around them, and that's what the entire show was about.
3
Given how appalled you are about the existence of something (jokingly) called “yacht rock,” I find your affection for “Friends” surprising. The “Friends” characters lived in huge apartments like no young person in New York ever could really afford and hung out in a coffee shop unlike anything I (a New Yorker) ever saw - I can think of no TV show ever more about privilege. But what I didn’t like about the show was that the humor was all based on the characters saying and doing dumb things. “Dumb” just is not that funny.
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@WDP Monica illegally sublet her grandmother's apartment thus her rent was quite low. She had a roommate so the rent was split too. Also, there was rent stabilization and having lived in Greenwich Village in an apartment larger than Joey & Chandler's, but not Rachel/Monica/Chandler's, rents weren't always awful in NYC!
2
thank you for this amazing article.
9
So predictable to read the comments; too misogynistic, too undiverse, too boring, too uninvolved in politics- the same comic critics slaying Dave Chappelle today. Friends lives on because it is funny, and a departure from the sad humor (if you can even call it that) of the completely unfunny comics who preach liberal theology, rather than entertain. I wish it had lived another decade.
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@HENRY The 1950s were my time. One has to ignore the racism, but otherwise, perfect. Even the misogyny could be conquered with enough work. We'd all be better off without the Internet.
4
@HENRY gee, let me guess how much you'd appreciate a Hollywood-written show, targetting suburban teenagers in Illinois about a local hang-out in Albany, Georgia.
2
You equate the criticism of Friends to that of Dave Chappelle? Different planets, nay, solar systems. DC is pure unadulterated genius; Friends is dreck. Jmho.
5
I have never been able to sit through an episode of Friends.
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And still, here I am commenting..,God we must love this internet thing! Like Chandler remarked, ‘Looks like this internet thing is there to stay’. But then, you won’t know it, not having seen it, now would you?Gah!
1
Because we’re always at stuck in second gear.
15
Don’t compare this drivel with Seinfeld. Please.
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@Earl M: I never watched “Seinfeld,” which seemed as dumb as “Friends.” I thought I might one evening, until I read the TV listing: “Jerry wants a new pair of pants.” I thought: “Seriously? With all the unread books in this apartment?!?!?”
7
@Earl M Seinfeld was far superior but that is not saying much. I find that Seinfeld has really aged poorly and after watching a few episodes of Comedians getting Coffee Jerry is just as a annoying self absorbed jerk in real life. The only voice he loves to hear is his own.
15
We never started watching it, as the trailers of the day established it was just another mediocre American sitcom, as useless and inane as any of the others.
We had a choice: watch “Friends” and wait for death, or turn off the TV and use our time. We chose the latter.
35
“Why We Can’t Stop Watching it”? What’s this “we” jazz? Speak for yourself. I’ll stick with “Seinfeld,” thanks.
81
I can stop watching it.
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@Larry
@Larry David, we presume? Agreed, though.
3
Please remove the [break] after that sentence: "That work and a country’s devotion to it feels like proof of a golden age of something."
2
I was in high school when Friends came out. I remember it being appointment television in my college dorm room (even if we had it on before we headed out somewhere else.) It was a show that kept me laughing during the aftermath of 9/11. By the time the gang cleared out the purple apartment and turned in their keys to Mr Treager, I was a functional adult. I grew up alongside the Friends.
Maybe that’s why I still watch more reruns than I should. Even though I know the punchlines by heart now, I still laugh every time Ross says, “I take thee, Rachel” or Joey makes his “moo point”. The fight that leads to Ross and Rachel being “on a break” or the episode where Monica and Chandler find out the results of their fertility testing are just as gut-wrenching to watch today as they were back then.
On one hand, it was never anything but a silly soap opera that made me laugh, - but the song’s right. These Friends have always been there for me.
80
As a college professor who watched Friends in grad school, I have to bear witness: it turns out my students still watch this show. They seem, in fact, to have streamed all of its episodes, over and over. It serves as an inter-generational reference point.
So whether or not you liked the show, of think it stands the test of time, the truth is that it may well be the most compulsively watched sitcom of the past thirty years.
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@Renee. My teenagers and all their friends watch it endlessly. It's undoubtedly the most watched sitcom of the last few decades.
4
Were shows like "Friends" and "Seinfeld" fun to watch only because they were well done, or because they either reflected the changing social norms or were a reflection of social norms that were changing? Humor is derived from the familiar. The cast was funny, but also anxious, and not really happy. They didn't have good jobs and they didn't make much money. They had problems with intimacy. The only thing missing was college debt.
8
Hard to believe people are so impressed by a show in which the characters did nothing except sit on a couch and drop one-liners. Friends was a joke all right, just not in the way its admirers imagine.
55
I liked “Friends” while it was on, but it hasn’t aged well. I watched a few episodes recently and cringed over the first world problems, the lack of diversity, and the casual homophobia.
26
Totally agree, I wouldn’t trade Seinfeld for Friends in 2019! I would also add that it’s impossible to judge the whole show: the first 3 seasons were coherent and well written while the rest relied on lame spec episode, either grotesque or entirely disconnected from the very premise and characters’ developments viewers had grown accustomed to! Almost every episode of Seinfeld is extremely funny on the other hand.
I’m not even going to address how Friends aged comped to more recent shows like 30 Rock, it would be kinda cruel...
8
I don’t get the Friends fascination. It was just OK back in the day, and I certainly wouldn’t waste time watching it now.
71
I've seen the show in bits and pieces, in reruns. It's a typical sitcom. Predictable jokes set up by predictable improbable set up lines, following a silly "plot."
The only interesting thing about it is that the cast stood together when salaries were negotiated.
None of the "stars" had career successes after it went off the air. Their "talent" was an illusion.
67
Gee it must be a different Jennifer Aniston who is in all those box-office-smashing films. And while the others have branched our into indies, producing, and other media, their sporadic appearance on big screens isn’t a measure of their talent. With Friends royalties totaling around $20 million a year for each of the cast, none of them actually HAVE to work anymore, you know.
44
@Ken Not really, nearly everything she's been in has been a flop except for "The Good Girl."
7
@Ken
Ken is a fan, as in fantasy.
1
I liked Friends when it was Living Single. Where in New York City did these folks get that size of an apartment? And zero diversity. This show was as dry and flavorless as toast, never understood the appeal. In terms of must-see tv, Seinfeld was funnier and the setting was far more believable.
74
Living Single was a much better show! Perhaps because it was about strong women.
18
Interesting that a high schooler we know is more into Friends than we ever were. We were living in Manhattan at the time and found the whole premise just boring. Of course, they were all pretty great tolook at. That’s it though. Imho, Seinfeld, Fraser etc. much better written.
While it has not aged well w me, they have developed quite a following among high schoolers. Go figure.
24
I was fascinated by Friends because of the excellent writing, the even better ensemble acting, and the often surprisingly subtle individual acting. It's very easy to put it down, and some of the criticisms do stick a little, but there's a lot of hard work and skill in there which showed. Comedy is hard and ensemble comedy even harder. They grew to be true pros and that was a joy to see, even when the plotlines got ridiculous and the hair too. No, the show didn't go beyond its natural boundaries much, and why should it? It was smart enough to know what it was, and in that it excelled.
148
@LS So true. They weren't setting out to split the atom. They decided what the show should be, and executed it very well. In these times, a little escapism is highly therapeutic!
29
@LS
Joey. Phoebe. Chandler. Ross. Yeah that's some subtle acting. The other two were merely wooden.
3
@Mexico Mike
Are you an actor?
Jennifer Aniston has some of the best comic timing around. You're clearly fooled by the hair, the femaleness, and the genre.
5
I was always a “Seinfeld” type of person. I couldn’t quite understand the show “Friends”. It wasn’t witty comedy; It was rather silly and boring, in my opinion.
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@Limegreenjeans
Totally agree!
3
The Big Bang, Frazier, Home Improvement had better writing, acting, and story line by far.
47
Same here, never watched it. Mary Tyler Moore with a live audience, super well written, was great.
Lots of television from the 60s and 70s was quite good.
Maybe the popularity of "Friends" was the precursor to the election of Donald Trump ?
27
You’ve never watched the show but think it’s so dumb that it predicated the election of Trump? Wrong target audience, I’m afraid.
I was 3 years old when Friends started - not unlike Mary Tyler Moore, Friends was my family’s Thursday night “thing” until I was in high school (along with ER, which I was not allowed to watch).
I don’t believe in nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, but does your family do this anymore? Because I look around and see kids on iPads and parents on their phones. I’ve watched Friends multiple times as an adult and sure, some of the jokes wouldn’t be alright by 2019 standards, but overall, it holds up. And it reminds me of what our lives were like before we all retreated behind screens. So sue me.
14
Friends has aged incredibly poorly in that quarter century. It was the “it” sitcom for many reasons at the time, but the show suffered from the worst types of non-realism: little diversity shown in NYC, apartments that only millionaires could afford, and relationships that rarely became more than gross caricature. Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, are examples of truly timeless sitcoms that resonate across the decades.
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@Peter H.
"I Love Lucy"? Seriously? A grown woman wailing like a four year old and begging her husband for an allowance?
20
@Peter H. To be fair, the big apartment was explained as Monica's grandmother had it rent controlled and the girls were sub-letting it.
19
@Patrick B.
Hilarious. One line of dialogue in one episode explains away the most glaring fantasy.
7
Friends seemed to have specific age following. Never Watched. Seinfeld like I Love Lucy, timeless. Reading Friends Premise-actually boring......
41