When Friends was current I wasn’t a fan, the small bits I’d seen mostly annoyed me and - disaffected gothy teens/early twenties guy that I was - I dismissed it as one of those things everyone in the mainstream liked and was therefore obviously garbage.
Nowadays I’m married to a Friends fan who has begun showing me the series. As we progress through the box set I’m realizing it’s actually pretty good, a couple of the characters actually still annoy me when they’re focused on but there’s a ton else going on that’s pretty entertaining. I’m particularly surprised to be enjoying Chandler so much.
It’s very sad what Matthew Perry went through in life and how he died, but I’m now belatedly appreciating some of the work he did.
I’m still not sure I’d call it good, but it was a big step up from sitcoms before it. It tried pretty hard to not be sexist, and introduced some diversity that wasn’t just John Ritter pretending to be gay for lulz. It is still spectacularly unrealistic, but whatever. It’s a sitcom! It does have some genuinely funny moments.
I still periodically get “Smelly Cat” stuck in my head. Fuck, I’m guilty of making Ross-esque synthesizer music…
Very true. There are also definitely still some 1990s-era LGBTQIA+ phobic jokes which were wrong then and really stick out now, but in general I’d call the writing surprisingly decent.
As a New Yorker, though, I still couldn’t afford that apartment in a million years.
When Friends was current I wasn’t a fan, the small bits I’d seen mostly annoyed me and - disaffected gothy teens/early twenties guy that I was - I dismissed it as one of those things everyone in the mainstream liked and was therefore obviously garbage.
Nowadays I’m married to a Friends fan who has begun showing me the series. As we progress through the box set I’m realizing it’s actually pretty good, a couple of the characters actually still annoy me when they’re focused on but there’s a ton else going on that’s pretty entertaining. I’m particularly surprised to be enjoying Chandler so much.
It’s very sad what Matthew Perry went through in life and how he died, but I’m now belatedly appreciating some of the work he did.
Look for “Friends without laugh track” clips on Youtube.
I love those!
I’m still not sure I’d call it good, but it was a big step up from sitcoms before it. It tried pretty hard to not be sexist, and introduced some diversity that wasn’t just John Ritter pretending to be gay for lulz. It is still spectacularly unrealistic, but whatever. It’s a sitcom! It does have some genuinely funny moments.
I still periodically get “Smelly Cat” stuck in my head. Fuck, I’m guilty of making Ross-esque synthesizer music…
Very true. There are also definitely still some 1990s-era LGBTQIA+ phobic jokes which were wrong then and really stick out now, but in general I’d call the writing surprisingly decent.
As a New Yorker, though, I still couldn’t afford that apartment in a million years.
Neither could they, it was rent controlled due to Monica’s grandmother living there, and they illegally kept her name on the lease for the cheap rent.
And Chandler made good money, so he could afford the smaller 2 bedroom.