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Another Friends Thread [split topic]

Started by gilbertharding, June 12, 2019, 05:01:45 PM

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gilbertharding

I'm not starting another Friends thread just to point out that this weekend on Channel 5 they re-ran the end of Season 6 and the beginning of Season 7.

Season 6 ends with Monica and Chandler getting engaged. Season 7 starts with scenes later that night.

Of course, if you weren't paying attention, you'd never know that these two episodes were made several months apart - because the continuity is immaculate. Everyone's wearing exactly the same clothes, etc etc... except for the fact that in the interim the actor who plays Chandler has lost two entire stone. It's very distracting.

Sin Agog


Icehaven

If we're doing Friends niggles, I was always bugged by the first episode of an early series which has a pre-credits section where the gang all walk into Central Perk laughing and joking about something, see their couch is occupied, look all bewildered and leave. When they walk in Monica is there right at the front laughing away and looking as well-groomed and coiffed as normal. Then the very first scene after the credits is all about what a wreck she is due to her break-up with Richard, and she's slobbing around the apartment crying, in pyjamas, all unkempt, with the other Friends saying she's been like that since the split. It's not a continuity error as such but it just jars given that literally 2 minutes before she'd been shown in the coffee shop looking all perky with the rest of them as per.

St_Eddie

Quote from: gilbertharding on June 12, 2019, 05:01:45 PM
Season 6 ends with Monica and Chandler getting engaged. Season 7 starts with scenes later that night.

Of course, if you weren't paying attention, you'd never know that these two episodes were made several months apart - because the continuity is immaculate. Everyone's wearing exactly the same clothes, etc etc... except for the fact that in the interim the actor who plays Chandler has lost two entire stone. It's very distracting.



Blimey!  You weren't kidding, gilbertharding.

Andy147

There's one series of it (maybe s2) where it follows straight on from the previous series, and one of them says something about the new hairstyles that Phoebe has given them, for similar reasons. Personally I found that more distracting than if they'd just ignored the hairstyle changes.

Icehaven

Quote from: St_Eddie on June 12, 2019, 05:29:07 PM


Is that even the same shirt? The 90's fashion for oversize (and fact I can't quite make out if the pocket on the 2nd shirt is on the first) makes it hard to tell. And as an appreciator of the aesthetics of Matthew Perry I have to say he looks way better in the first pic with a bit more flesh on his face, there's something of the Kryten about him in that second one. 

Gerald Fjord

all the drugs and the weight fluctuation really did a number on matthew perry's face. season one the guy is a stone cold stunner, then from about season 5 onwards something just starts going wrong in ways I can never quite put my finger on. It's quite uncanny.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Gerald Fjord on June 12, 2019, 10:29:11 PM
all the drugs and the weight fluctuation really did a number on matthew perry's face. season one the guy is a stone cold stunner, then from about season 5 onwards something just starts going wrong in ways I can never quite put my finger on. It's quite uncanny.


Twed


Fry

Recently finished going through Friends again. It really is bloody excellent. I remember being a snotty little teenage twat and convincing myself I hated it - probably because it was popular (or maybe just because of this place) - but returning to it I can appreciate how terrifically written it is all the way through (except maybe some stuff near the very end where it was getting a bit too soapy and light on new storylines). There's a stretch from late season 4 and mid season 6 where it's just consistently hilarious, groups of episodes with an amazing hit-rate. Especially for a show that was at a point where many others would've been well past their prime. It gets one over on Seinfeld for just being incredibly watchable too, for some reason I can't articulate. I'm more likely to chuck friends on in the background when I'm deep into a Tetris 99 session than Seinfeld.

I still can't really stand Pheobe as a character though (as much as I like Lisa Kudrow as an actor), and I think Ross is only really good as a character when he's miserable or pissed off. Or at least that's when he shines.

Brundle-Fly

These sort of articles make me cringe. It's as if some young people can't grasp the concept of flawed characters in comedy and the passage of time. It's funny how Friends in the nineties was criticised for being cosy and smug but now the opposite. Fuck knows what she'd make of Bottom.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/15/10-times-ross-friends-actually-worst-human-ever-9212980/

Utter Shit

I don't really agree there - the reason a lot of Friends seems dodgy in retrospect is because, generally, you're supposed to sympathise with the characters. They are written to be likeable people with aspirational lives, with their problematic behaviour presented as charming foibles rather than serious problems.

I agree that you have to account for the passage of time with a lot of it, at least insofar as you can reasonably assume the writers weren't trying to offend people, but I don't think we're really supposed to see them as flawed, and that's the issue. Bottom is an extreme example going the other way - their behaviour is never going to be problematic, because they're presented as horrible people that you're not supposed to empathise with.

With Friends, at best their problematic behaviour (sorry for the annoying term but it fits) is just a vehicle for jokes with no real attempt to make the viewer take a side, and at worst the writers actively push you to agree with the person behaving badly - I always bring it up, but when Phoebe essentially steals a cat that she knows belongs to a little kid, Ross is the only one that stands up to her and the show clearly presents him as the bad guy and Phoebe as the victim.

Wet Blanket

That may be the case but in that article his problematic behaviour includes 'saying the wrong name at his wedding' and doing that quieten down hand thing - I.E. the very basis of the joke being that he's acting like an arsehole.

You're absolutely supposed to see them as flawed. Ross in particular developed into the series' George Costanza, driving himself into rages over perceived minor social infractions. I'm not sure Friends would have been such a hit if it was about a group of well adjusted people going about their business in a wholly morally upstanding fashion at all times.

Icehaven

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 13, 2019, 09:23:10 AM

https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/15/10-times-ross-friends-actually-worst-human-ever-9212980/

I love how directly underneath that article there's a poll ''Who do you think is the worst character from Friends?'' and unsurprisingly Ross is currently storming ahead at 42%. 

jobotic

Just a nothing article isn't it? Here's ten plot points from friends.

Ten Times Reggie Perrin Was The Worst human Being Ever

1) imagining his wife's mother as hippo

2) letting his children think he was dead

3) fantasising about having sex with his secretary


etc etc etc

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Utter Shit on June 13, 2019, 09:43:16 AM
I don't really agree there - the reason a lot of Friends seems dodgy in retrospect is because, generally, you're supposed to sympathise with the characters. They are written to be likeable people with aspirational lives, with their problematic behaviour presented as charming foibles rather than serious problems.

I agree that you have to account for the passage of time with a lot of it, at least insofar as you can reasonably assume the writers weren't trying to offend people, but I don't think we're really supposed to see them as flawed, and that's the issue. Bottom is an extreme example going the other way - their behaviour is never going to be problematic, because they're presented as horrible people that you're not supposed to empathise with.

With Friends, at best their problematic behaviour (sorry for the annoying term but it fits) is just a vehicle for jokes with no real attempt to make the viewer take a side, and at worst the writers actively push you to agree with the person behaving badly - I always bring it up, but when Phoebe essentially steals a cat that she knows belongs to a little kid, Ross is the only one that stands up to her and the show clearly presents him as the bad guy and Phoebe as the victim.

I don't think that's true. We can relate to them on some level, but there's also a disconnect where they have weird quirks or behaviours. It's more like they have just enough likeable qualities for you to go along the ride with them, but you're not supporting every decision they make. That's the purpose sitcoms serve really. I don't really get this idea that we're supposed to be friends with the Friends, we're just voyeurs.

DrGreggles

Never really got into Friends.
Gave it a whirl for a while - and probably quite enjoyed some of the early stuff, but I just found most of the characters very annoying.

I'd probably have preferred a Joey & Chandler flatshare sitcom to be honest, as they were the least irritating.
Not one with Joey on his own though. Obviously.

gilbertharding

I'll probably get myself #cancelled, but surely if you were married to a woman who left you for a woman... surely you'd have a free pass to feel less than well disposed towards that woman without being charged with homophobia. I mean, it might be homophobic... but he'd have been chilly towards the third person if it had been a man, too.

Similarly, Chandler's problem with his father might be transphobic, but don't most people have a problem with what they consider their parents embarrassing traits? My dad wore socks and sandals, for instance.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: gilbertharding on June 13, 2019, 11:01:36 AM
Similarly, Chandler's problem with his father might be transphobic, but don't most people have a problem with what they consider their parents embarrassing traits? My dad wore socks and sandals, for instance.

Yeah, I've gone into this before on here, but Chandler's problems with his dad all stem from the awful, probably traumatic childhood he went through. Similarly, he's embarrassed by his mother being a famous erotic novelist. Towards the end he repairs his relationship with his father, it's not about who he is, it's about what he did.

good times

Quote from: Gerald Fjord on June 12, 2019, 10:29:11 PM
all the drugs and the weight fluctuation really did a number on matthew perry's face. season one the guy is a stone cold stunner, then from about season 5 onwards something just starts going wrong in ways I can never quite put my finger on. It's quite uncanny.

It's very uncanny, I became slightly obsessed with digging into what happened for a short while but it seems he developed drink-related pancreatitis between 6 and 7 which had him hospitalised and lose loads of weight.

Aside from the obvious weight loss though he seems very out of it for that whole season, like there's more to it than just what was reported. There's a distinct difference in speech and personality as well.

He does however seem a lot healthier and more himself in later seasons.

Weirdly in interviews he's claimed series 2-5 as the ones where he was completely out of it on drink/drugs etc. even though that was arguably his peak in terms of acting performance.

DrGreggles

Quote from: good times on June 13, 2019, 01:45:28 PM
Weirdly in interviews he's claimed series 2-5 as the ones where he was completely out of it on drink/drugs etc. even though that was arguably his peak in terms of acting performance.

Wasn't Kelsey Grammer off his tits for most of Frasier?

gilbertharding

I remember just after the original run finished, a critic looked back at the whole thing and made a remark about how strange it was to watch the entire male half of the cast get bigger and bigger, while the female half diminished in size...

But Chandler series 3-4 looked ill skinny. Especially for an American.

Utter Shit

Can we all at least agree that Eddie in season 2 is not only the greatest cameo role in the show's history, but the greatest cameo role in television history and possibly even the greatest human achievement of any kind?

Chollis

Quote from: icehaven on June 13, 2019, 10:08:28 AM
I love how directly underneath that article there's a poll ''Who do you think is the worst character from Friends?'' and unsurprisingly Ross is currently storming ahead at 42%.

Fuck off! Ross has some of the funniest scenes. Phoebe is shit. Lol isn't she kooky though?

Jerzy Bondov

I'm no big Friends fan and don't remember much of it well but Ross going MY SANDWICH is in the top 5 moments of the show, surely?

Utter Shit

Ross from series 6 onwards is by a mile the best character IMO.

up_the_hampipe

Ross drunk is one of my favourite parts of the show, especially when he falls over trying to sit down and asks Joey if he's okay https://youtu.be/DtHTiiny9u4 (1 minute in)

bgmnts

Quote from: Utter Shit on June 13, 2019, 04:02:36 PM
Can we all at least agree that Eddie in season 2 is not only the greatest cameo role in the show's history, but the greatest cameo role in television history and possibly even the greatest human achievement of any kind?

Ha yeah it's funny cos he's a bit mental.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Utter Shit on June 13, 2019, 04:02:36 PM
Can we all at least agree that Eddie from Cook'd and Bomb'd is not only the greatest poster in the site's history, but the greatest poster in the Internet's history and possibly even the greatest human achievement of any kind?

You flatter me, Sir.

Quote from: bgmnts on June 13, 2019, 05:26:39 PM
Ha yeah it's funny cos he's a bit mental.

Mentally challenged, please.

checkoutgirl

Friends is not better than Seinfeld. Come off it Fry.