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Friends

The cast of Friends
  • Posted at 2:26pm
  • 01 November 2007
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 5 comments

I always feel like an impostor when I watch E4, as if a 15-year-old with a bellybutton ring and footless tights is going to tap me on the shoulder and insist: "Madam, would you move along please, there’s nothing for you here."

Or perhaps she’d just punch me in the mouth, dump me headfirst in a skip, record it and upload the whole sorry episode to YouTube - you know what kids today are like. (I must apologise for using the word "upload", one of the greatest offences against the English language of the past ten years.)

But maybe I’d escape the E4 police with a caution or perhaps a couple of weeks of community service, and not just because I watch E4 every night, but because I watch the best sitcom in television history at the same time on E4 every night, between 8:00pm and 9:00pm (or, if I miss it, between 9:00pm and 10:00pm on the wonder that is E4 +1).

Yes, dear readers, I love Friends. I’ve seen every episode countless times, I could stage my own word-perfect recitals of The One Where Nana Dies Twice and The One with Monica’s Thunder in an electric storm, in the dark, without protective clothing.

Friends is perfect. Just perfect. I won’t hear a word against it. Everything about it works, and works again and again. Characters, writing, jokes, everything. Forget the increasingly tedious and hysterical Ugly Betty and the irritatingly self-regarding Scrubs – Friends has it all.

Autumnwatch

I "star-spotted" Bill Oddie in the street the other day, which triggered a curious thought process that resulted in my making my Christmas present list. Why – because Bill Oddie equals Autumnwatch (BBC2, starts Monday 5 November) equals dark nights equals Christmas next month equals I must get a move on with the shopping. I like Autumnwatch, it’s jolly and a bit chaotic and kind of endearing.

A Room with a View

My grumble of the week concerns A Room with a View (ITV1, Sunday 4 November). I loved it, after I’d got over that "why bother with a remake when they could just show that gorgeous Merchant Ivory film?".

It’s an Andrew Davies adaptation, which will surprise no-one, and for some reason he’s changed the novel’s ending. It’s not a very good ending, either. I have no idea why and it’s annoying. No-one would dream of tinkering with, for instance, Romeo and Juliet by letting the pair live happily ever after running a graphic design business in Padua. So why muck around with another classic?

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.

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Comments

  • Posted on 07 March 2009
  • at 4:53pm
  • by dpm

I love Friends too. It's innocent, funny and timeless.

  • Posted on 30 January 2009
  • at 7:49pm
  • by Edward

Friends was very funny.Not perfect,but funny.Superflorence you need to get a life,there ARE people out there that look at pornography especially on the internet,so therefore you think TV should just pretend things and opinions you dont approve of should never be shown? That I believe is censorship of the basest kind and a step closer to Stalinism.So you think Bilko was a grittily realistic portrayal of army life? Or I Love Lucy a searingly real portrayal of married life like 'Revolutionary Road'? If you didnt like Friends you shouldnt have bothered to watch it so much. Hang on,why DID you.Just so you could write a mean-spirited post years after it finished? Hypocrite.

  • Posted on 28 August 2008
  • at 11:24am
  • by ziggy

i love friends but i also love scrubs and i love ugley betty

  • Posted on 27 November 2007
  • at 1:10pm
  • by superflorence
I have the first series of Friends on DVD, and find it funny, clever, and original. By series 3 the show had lost most of this. It spent the next 7 years in sitcom land- 6 very rich stars pretending to live impossible lives in a very white New York, playing characatures, in pretictable plots with extremely obvious jokes. And the development of the dread catchphrase- extremely overused catchphrases at that but admittadly necessary as all the shows characters had degenerated into one line walking jokes. Friends even began to paraody intself, in the show with nods to the fact that they all apparently had no other friends, and off the show appearing many times on SNL. When tv shows start self-paraodying it seems to me to be proof that they have completely run out of ideas. Worse still was the transformation from representing the interesting gender/sexual politics of the 1990's to being like most other media; the guardians of the status quo, maintaining gender/sexual stereotypes. It is totally acceptable for Joey to womanise (why would you be frineds with him?) but not to wear make-up (he's an actor, thats what they do). Play-boy and other pornography with objectifies women is brought into the show as an entirely innocuous hobby- even the women start readin one. If you dont think this affects society or how people think, just think of how many people got the 'Rachel' hair, or started saying 'so' as an intensifyer (thats so good, you are so right etc). So these are the reasons Friends is bad.
  • Posted on 15 November 2007
  • at 1:10am
  • by qrter

"Forget the increasingly tedious and hysterical Ugly Betty and the irritatingly self-regarding Scrubs – Friends has it all."

That looks about right - Friends is tedious, hysterical and irritatingly self-regarding!

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