First watched in: 2015
*clap clap clap clap*
Soon after the Internet and my peers freaked out about Friends being added to Netflix and after
my parents told me they enjoyed it while it was on TV, I decided to give it a
try. I liked it, I really did, enough to give it a rewatch. But it’s been about
a year and a half since then and I haven’t had a desire to watch it again
since.
One thing I did enjoy about Friends was even though the show took place in the 90’s, much of
the humor transcends the century shift and remains funny even today. The same
troubles we all have involving jobs, relationships, and friendships existed
twenty years ago. They all grow up, in a way, over the course of ten years, and
I’m sure anyone who watched the show who was the same age would feel like they
grew up together. But for everyone else, the college kids who have latched onto
them and refused to let go, it’s a show giving us a glimpse of what the future
could be like, and it isn’t always a happily ever after.
Some of the stereotypes and overacting in some cases bugged
me, but the more I look into sitcoms, the more I find that the “situational comedy” part of
the writing comes first, the character development second. It’s easy to write
situational humor that everyone can relate to when all you have are stock
characters to work with. The reason Friends
stood out was it didn’t always fall into the cut and paste trap and their
actors had a crazy amount of chemistry from the first season on. It still had
its flaws, though. No show is perfect.
My least favorite character was probably Ross and my
favorite character shifted between Monica and Chandler, depending if one of
them just did a stupid thing or not. And therefore it’s no surprise that I
really wasn’t all that invested in the Ross/Rachel relationship, unlike most
everyone I know who watched. The interesting thing was, I could see a bit of
myself in every character, and that must be why Friends has stood the test of time and wormed its way into the
subconscious of another generation of twenty-somethings.
The main takeaway from it is we should all be so lucky as to
find such a close-knit group of friends as them. Friends is definitely here to stay, in the greater scheme of
American culture. That’s a fact.
Would I watch again? Probably not for a while.
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