Friends Forever... (Friends)

Member Name: Daniel K

Product:	Friends
Date:	10/10/05 (323 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny show, great characters, entertaining

Disadvantages: Not always funny

Just about everyone will have heard of 'Friends' before, being one of the most popular sitcoms ever, probably only being rivalled by The Simpsons in terms of popularity. For those of you who may not have seen it, Friends revolves around the lives and relationships of six characters who live in New York. Obviously, they are all friends, but they are also linked to each other in other ways too (as I'll explain later).

The series began in America in 1994, and quickly got picked up over here, and is still shown on Channel 4 today. It finished after ten years in 2004 with an hour-long special episode, with well over 200 epiosdes shown in total. The show is mostly set either in one of the character's apartments (mainly Monica's) or in a local coffee shop called Central Perk. As I mentioned before, there are six main characters, and they are as follows:

Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston): Rachel is seen as the spoilt rich character who has never done a days work before, and she arrives in Friends during the first episode after dumping her future husband. She stays with Monica, her best friend from high-school and gets her first job as a waitress at Central Perk. She has an on-off relationship with Ross, who had a crush on Rachel years ago in high-school.

Monica Geller/Bing (Courteney Cox): Monica is Rachel's best friend, and is also Ross' younger sister; she is slightly obsessive about tidyness. She works as a chef and often cooks for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. She eventually has a relationship with Chandler, and they get married later on. Monica was quite fat when she was younger, and this is the source of quite a few jokes in the show.

Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow): Phoebe is the eccentric character out of all six, and she mainly works as a massuese, but is best known for being a singer-songwriter - her most famous song, 'Smelly Cat', is performed by her many times in the show. Phoebe lost both her parents when she was still young, but her father is supposedly still alive, and she also has a twin sister. Phoebe agrees to be the surrogate mother of her half-brother's triplets and gives birth to them. She is also often required to provide advice for the other characters.

Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc): Joey is the slow, sometimes stupid character in friends, who often misses the point about things. He shares an apartment with Chandler, (as well as a chicken and a duck!) and works as a actor but doesn't seem to get much work. Joey is best-know for his chat up line 'How you doin'?', but even though he has lots of relationships with women, he is the only character who doesn't get married during the show. Joey also has a big appetite, and is usually seen eating something like fried chicken or pizza during the show!

Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry): Chandler lives with Joey, and is seen as the joker out of all the characters, as he always tells lots of jokes in the show and makes light of the situations other characters get into. He works as a systems analyst, and eventually ends up marrying Monica later on, even though sometimes the other characters question whether Chandler is gay or not. He is also remembered for saying 'Could I BE any more..?', which is kind of his catchphrase.

Ross Geller (David Schwimmer): Ross is the geeky character and works as a paeleontologist and University lecturer. He is married early on, but finds out his wife is a lesbian - she also gives birth to his son in the first series, too. Ross likes Rachel a lot, and wishes they were closer, but they never have a serious relationship, although they do marry each other by mistake on a trip to Las Vegas!. He is also the elder brother of Monica, and looks out for her.

Other characters who feature regularly include Ross and Monica's parents, who crop up in many episodes with special occasions; there's Gunther, the owner of Cental Perk, who like Ross has a crush on Rachel, but never tells her he likes her; also there's Janice, Chandler's on-off girlfriend early on, but who he can never quite shake off! She has the most annoying laugh, says 'Oh my God!' a lot, and only seems to get on Chandler's (and everyone else's) nerves.

What's good about the show is that it is usually very funny, with plenty of funny jokes in episodes, and the characters are likeable and funny too, and most people have a favourite one in the show. The main downside is that some of the humour in Friends passes me by, and there are episodes that aren't that great to watch, but mostly it is a great show.

Overall, 'Friends' is a really good show, probably not my favourite TV programme by a long shot, but still funny. I only began watching the show last year, but got into it really quickly, and now I always try to watch it if it's on. It is shown on Channel 4 in the UK a lot, and many episodes that have been shown a few times before are still funny. I would also recommend Friends if you mainly like comedy shows, as it is one of the best American comedies i've seen.

Thanks for Reading! :-)

Summary: A really good American comedy show, definitely worth a watch.