Time to say goodbye... (Friends)

Member Name: shanecahill

Product:	Friends
Date:	04/07/01 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The first few series

Disadvantages: The last few series

Yes, I know the last two, possibly three series sucked and I'm sure the next one will too, but for the overall quality of the first four series I've given this sitcom four stars.

Friends marks the coming together of six twenty-somethings (or thirty-somethings now!) in a New York coffee house called Central Perk. These friends are Monica Geller (Courtney Cox), Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), Pheobe Boufet (Lisa Kudrow), Rachel Greene (Jennifer Anniston) and Joey Tribbiani (Matt Le Blanc). This is how they became friends :

Chandler and Joey are room-mates and live across the hall from Monica and Rachel. Ross is Monica's sister and Chandler's old college room-mate. Rachel is Monica's old high-school friend. Pheobe, well Pheobe is just there!

The show, in the first two series especially, was extremely witty and funny. Most of the lines were gifted to Chandler, the king of sarcasm. The writers really showed their worth with lines like :

"Oh, guess what?"
"OOOH, the fifth dentist caved, and now they're all reccomending Trident?"

and my favourite line

(Chandler on phone, suddenly hangs up quickly)
"I got her machine"
"Her answering machine?"
"No, interestingly enough her leaf-blower picked up"

If Friends had been able to maintain this kind of standard throughout I am certain it would be a classic comedy. Instead, the writers decided to fade it into emotional rubbish. The last two series have been re-hashing jokes till they're just not funny (Joey being dumb, Pheobe being weird). There has also been an ongoing relationship between Monica and Chandler which has meant more sentimental crap and less jokes.

In the last two series, I have taken to laughing AT the series, rather than with it as the stars try to pull off terrible jokes without cringing too hard. At times the acting is so
wooden you could make an entire fitted kitchen and still have enough left over to make a small bird-table.

Outside of Friends, the actors have not had much success. Fools Rush In (Matthew Perry), Breast Men (David Schwimmer), Picture Perfect (Jennifer Anniston), Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (Lisa Kudrow) and the biggest turkey of them all, the utterly laughable Lost In Space (Matt Le Blanc). The only who has had any luck is Courtney Cox who has starred in Ace Ventura and Scream.

This show has had many big name guest appearances over the years : two ER doctors, Noah Wyle and George Clooney, Bruce Willis, Helen Hunt and the greatest performance of all, Jon Lovitz as the stoned guy.

I've read back over this review and it seems very harsh, but if I was reviewing the last series I would actually give it one star, so when you look at it that way I'm being pretty generous. What I can't understand is that a show like Fraiser, while maybe going downhill slightly, is still able to produce top class comedy at times, while Friends which had arguably better writers has gone so far down so quickly.

Goodbye Friends, thanks for all the memories. One quick suggestion: end the last series quickly before you do any more damage.

Summary: