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The Final series of Friends

Started by mwude, February 03, 2004, 08:12:25 PM

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mwude

Apologies if this was already discussed before, I've not been entirely keeping up recently, but I just saw an ad for the final series of Friends and thought "could anyone really care?"

Any of the freshness & funnyness I remember from the early series has long drained away.  I couldn't give two shites what happened to the characters & the tedious re-hashing of plot-lines became very dull very quickly (actually not quickly in the slightest - it was a long, drawn-out, painful process).  From what I've seen of recent ones the same characters tell the same jokes at roughly the same point in every episode.  Joey does something daft!  Then Monica does something kooky!  Chandler takes the piss! (he's only their friend because he considers himself superior to them & sneer at them).  The other three do very little! Rinse & repeat!

I'm posting this in the comedy forum because I'm sure I recall friends being funny quite a while ago.

5:09am

I used to agree with the whole Friends used to be good but is now shit school fo thought. That was until I saw some episodes from earlier series repeated recently and they seemed fairly weak. I'm sure there must have been a golden age of Friends (I used to delay a night out to watch it) but I can't quite pinpoint it.

That said (cue a stream of contradiction) I actually quite enjoy the recent series, and have never considered it to be the drivel that many people seem to label it as.

Jet Set Willy

I'll still watch it if i haven't got anything else to do. I am kind of interested to see what happens.

Vermschneid Mehearties

Seemed to go like this:

Started reasonable but generic
Got into the characters and narrative a bit
Got moments of genuine humour using obvious mechanisms
Maintained it
Went all merchanidesy and plots seemed to circulate
Characters became stayed, and weak always portraying the same character
Became moralistic
Improved spectacularly for some unknown reasons
Stayed like that for a bit
Tailed off before finally chucking all momentum down the pan with oversaturation and meaningless storylines as we lost empathy for the characters.

Wow..:S

It can't end fast enough for me, I started collecting the friends dvds about three years ago and I won't leave a collection half completed - the sooner they stop making them the sooner I can stop buying them. I have the final 6 dvds preordered on play and its a terrific sense of relief. I stopped enjoying it from season four onwards (coincidentaly the point where Warner Bros started cutting down on the episodes they stick on a single dvd so they could get away with selling more... go figure.)

Neil

I remember the early ones being great too, at the time I found the first couple of series excellent comedy, which really stood up to repeated viewing remarkably well!  I'll have to get the hold of some to see if my opinion has changed.  It all went down the shitter as soon as they started with all that "will they/ won't they" bollocks between the man with the horse face and that haircut woman.  This did turn the show into something that most women I know ADORE with a passion though.

TOCMFIC

I loved the first season. It was great. But then like most sitcoms from the US, the stars got too big for their boots, the original premise of the show was fucked over (since now at least one pair is married, another pair is shagging each other etc...) and it all went to hell.

I will, however, watch the final episode.

On a mildly related subject, I'm still amazed at Schwimmer's performance in Band of Brothers. You first see him and go "Oh look, Ross..." and within about 30 seconds you've totally forgotten it's the same guy.

gazzyk1ns

Couldn't agree more with Neil's post there and recently I've been wondering if I'll still like the first couple of series anymore or not too. Specifically because of the fact that I forgot how old I was when I "loved" it... I was 13 in 1994 and all this "relationship talk" and goings-on was something a bit new and foreign. Now that it's not, I expect some of the appeal will be gone.

I've downloaded some of this latest series and they're just "all-right"... but having said that, I like most "familiar" things and when you know the characters so well, as long as it's not dire, then I suppose it will always be "watchable".

Quote from: "Neil"I remember the early ones being great too, at the time I found the first couple of series excellent comedy, which really stood up to repeated viewing remarkably well!  I'll have to get the hold of some to see if my opinion has changed.  It all went down the shitter as soon as they started with all that "will they/ won't they" bollocks between the man with the horse face and that haircut woman.  This did turn the show into something that most women I know ADORE with a passion though.

No. There were great moments of comedy for at least 4 seasons, no 'classic' episodes ala seinfeld as such but some classic scenes at least and some wonderful one liners and exchanges. The ross & rachel love story was there from the off, from the very first episode.

Capuchin

I downloaded a couple of the new ones and it was fascinating if only to see that Monica has become a strange husk of a human being and Chandler has dyed his skin a curious red.

Neil

Quote from: "Munday's Chylde"No. There were great moments of comedy for at least 4 seasons, no 'classic' episodes ala seinfeld as such but some classic scenes at least and some wonderful one liners and exchanges. The ross & rachel love story was there from the off, from the very first episode.

Didn't it only really kick in after a couple of series though?  I mean it was always there as a sub-plot, but I remember it going on to dominate the entire bloody show, and then once that was resolved, they started tediously repeating the formula by pairing up the rest of them.

gazzyk1ns

Ross was always after Rachel in the first series but she was completely oblivious to it, she was fucking around with that hairy Spanish bloke Paulo. Then the cliffhanger at the end of that first series was when Chandler "let it slip" in conversation that Rossy boy fancied her... coincidentally, he was on some trip to China for work. Wooo, what would she do?

That was all well done as I remember, it wasn't overstated and never really dominated the thing, as you said.

The second series starts with Rachel going to the airport with some flowers to say "Oooh I love you, you should have made it more obvious!"... but that's scuppered when he comes back with a really ugly little Chinese girl. After some weirdness they get together in the middle of the second series, but horse boy fucks it up by making some list about her being an airhead. Then they get over that and get together.

You're right though, from what I've seen past that point, it's basically a re-hash of the basic concept of that storyline with... well, whoever, whether they were in the show or not. I seem to remember Helen Baxendale making a few appearances and being a rubbish actress.

El Unicornio, mang

To be honest, whenever I watch an episode of Friends, there's always a few laughs to be had, especially when Chandler and Joey have scenes together.
I absolutely hate Courtney Cox in it though, and  I find the other two girls fairly annoying too. And the bits when the audience go "whooooooo!!"* make me cringe, as do the occasional serious bits.
Mind, any mainstream comedy which has a storyline involving masturbating to shark porn is okay with me.

*Married With Children is the biggest criminal when it comes to audience whooping and hollering and rounds of applause, totally spoils the show.

TotalNightmare

well, although it IS time for it to end... it WILL be missed...

because, frankly, the UK is doing FUCK all on the sitcom front at the moment and at least with friends i could enjoy at least one good fucking laugh...

which is more that i could say for most if not all new UK sitcoms!

Vermschneid Mehearties

I could imagine Coupling being turned into our next popular sitcom. It's already got a fairly strong fanbase as it is. Most Friends watchers will be looking for some relationship-style sitcom to fill their void. Obviously Will & Grace won't be good enough...

TOCMFIC

The introduction of Paulo in the first series did spawn one great thing though.

The word "crapweasel".

heavyelectricity

I think that there should be a series just about Joey and Phoebe they are the only two characters of any interest to me at all. However whilst I make this point I must also make the point that 'Will And Grace' should not be about hose two characters it should in fact be based around Jack, Karen and Rosareo.

Vermschneid Mehearties

No. It wold be better if it was about silence and a black screen. At least then we could use our imagination.

heavyelectricity

Thats a bit harsh wouldn't you say. I mean what are you some sort of savage. F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Will and Grace are there for the lonely nights, when nothing is going right in your life and you want to laugh at others misfortune.

Smackhead Kangaroo

Have so many of you dregs become accustomed to this kind of drivel? Worse still is when you're the sort who won't watch it guiltily on your own, you have to go round someone else's house and force everyone else therre to suffer too. Really now, as with anything else, a single laugh per episode isn't a good thing and rather obviously it's just not good enough.
It;s not even passable fare for putting on as background noise. If its failing is down to anything in particular then it has to be becuase, being an american creation, it got dragged out for infinity to spin some dollars. Nothing should reach anywhere near a 6th or 7th series. Unless we're adapting an epic. But that's just the above point, there is aim and structure. Tv series shouldn't allowed to 'eveolve' becuase evolution takes millions of years.. Just pack it in and use the good bits for something else.

Neil

Oh, stop being such a Vermschneid for fucks sake.

Jemble Fred

I seem to disagree with pretty much everything said so far. I'm one of those cunts who RAILED about the anodyne glossy shitness of Friends for the first three or four series, but then became practically obsessed, and have watched every fucking episode ever. Okay, so the undeniable highpoint was Hugh Laurie being in it because it was, but it's kept the quality surprisingly high ever since, and it's all over now anyway. I downloaded the first eight or nine episodes of Season Ten, and found them hilarious. Especially once the Rachel & Joey thing was out of the bleeding way.

I will never watch Will & Grace. Never.

Quote from: "TotalNightmare"well, although it IS time for it to end... it WILL be missed...

because, frankly, the UK is doing FUCK all on the sitcom front at the moment and at least with friends i could enjoy at least one good fucking laugh...

which is more that i could say for most if not all new UK sitcoms!

Black Books 3. Very soon. And of course you'll be taping Catterick for me as of Monday week. Grass is very watchable too. Home can't be far from our screens either.

It's not all Nighty Night and Mad About Alice.

Vermschneid Mehearties

QuoteThats a bit harsh wouldn't you say. I mean what are you some sort of savage. F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Will and Grace are there for the lonely nights, when nothing is going right in your life and you want to laugh at others misfortune

Perhaps that's why I don't like Will & Grace. Anyone laughed at it...ever? I even laughed at Revolver. Once, mind.

Utter Shit

I like Friends, and always have...it's not hilariously funny, and it's not great drama, but it's a happy medium between the two that rarely fails at it's intentions...it does what it's there to do, and that's draw you into the characters and storylines, and make you laugh along the way.

Also, IMO the obviousness of the comedy where Phoebe, Joey and Chandler are concerned doesn't come close to Ross...he's definitely the funniest character.

axel

Quote from: "heavyelectricity"I think that there should be a series just about Joey and Phoebe they are the only two characters of any interest to me at all. However whilst I make this point I must also make the point that 'Will And Grace' should not be about hose two characters it should in fact be based around Jack, Karen and Rosareo.

Just to please you there will be a 'Joey' spinoff series once Friends finishes. Suspect it won't be that good though.

Utter Shit

Quote from: "axel"
Quote from: "heavyelectricity"I think that there should be a series just about Joey and Phoebe they are the only two characters of any interest to me at all. However whilst I make this point I must also make the point that 'Will And Grace' should not be about hose two characters it should in fact be based around Jack, Karen and Rosareo.

Just to please you there will be a 'Joey' spinoff series once Friends finishes. Suspect it won't be that good though.
They're coming up with all this shit about how he's the only person it would work with because they haven't explored his character very deeply...this worries me greatly, because it seems like they might use his lack of depth (because he was always just the guy who shags random girls and says stupid stuff) to bring out a load of skeletons in his closet, which would make the entire series stupid. Plus, the fact that the series will be based around him moving to Hollywood to pursue his dream of being a world-famous actor just reeks of 'well, we don't have any good storylines so we'll make him famous and have a load of guest stars in the series to keep people tuned in and make up for the lack of jokes'.

That said, some of my favourite Friends episodes were ones with guest stars (Brad Pitt's episode was pretty good, as was the old one with Robin Williams as the crazy guy...but the funniest IMO was Freddie Prinze Jr. as the over-sensitive nanny, that was hilarious).

I should probably have said hi, before, seeing as it was my first post. Hi.