Friends

13 yr old worfette is getting into the 90s sitcom. Think shes binge watched it about 3 times already.

Anyway it seems to be on the background all the time. 

Heres the thing: its bloody brilliant. Id totally forgotten how warm and amusing it is. Havent laughed out loud so much in ages.

The scripts and the actors are all great.

You can imagine the casting people high fiving each other for years.

I never want to like Friends when it's on (my wife binged it when it went on to Netflix), but it's great.

I now love Modern Family. Again, great cast and great writers.

It’s interesting you say that dux. As Im watching it I am struck by how it was a key part of this cultural revolution that helped to normalise liberal progressive attitudes to sexuality gender etc and what a great thing that was. But at the same time it now feels dated and probably isn’t quite perfect enough to cut the mustard with the younger uber woke generation. 

For me it feels like it’s in this sweet spot where we were all liberal, modern, comfortable and open minded; but before everything had all been politicised to hell and it feels like society had dug in to fight this sort of cultural trench warfare.

I guess I’m just getting too far into middle age.

To me the idea that friends isn’t PC is almost laughable.

But there’s no main character that’s gay or Bame and there’s a series of relationships that are intergenerational (Richard and Monica) or between colleagues (Rachel and Tag) or one where Ross dates a student and the guys watch porn and there’s a visit to a strip club and an episode with a hooker and you just know that a younger audience would insist upon finding it offensive somehow.

Tbh I just watched it for Rachel. And to imagine her hair moving around as I bent her over. My personal life has basically revolved around moments like that. And continues to do so.

I make no apologies.

It was weirdly lacking in credibility at the time despite the fact that it’s plainly brilliant and one of the best American sitcoms of all time. I might watch it all again.

Frasier and Seinfeld are timeless in the sense that I've never found the time to watch them and don't intend to.

Friends was funny but ultimately became repetitive because it was based on a limited number of jokes about the characters.

Seinfeld isn’t my cup of tea, Friends is brilliant. Of course the fashionable opinion at the time was that Seinfeld was sublime genius and Friends was rubbish. Frasier was good; likeable and smart.

Rubbish.

Seinfeld is comedy genius. Only the old classics like I Love Lucy and Bilko even compare.

(For me, Lucy was the all-time funniest comedian/show on the tellybox)

But it's true Forster.  My housemate at uni once tried watching an entire series of Friends in one go and doing that you really noticed how repetitive the gags were.  If you watched it once a week it wasn't as obvious.

I pretty much know every episode by heart

it has dated a bit but is still sublime.

considering letting my 11 year old watch it but there is a lot of sexual content and I can’t remember if it just all goes over your head at that age

I loved the first few seasons but lost interest after season 4 or whenever it was that Rachel got new hair. Long running series like that do become repetitive though because theyre limited in the scenarios they can show so start relying on character specific gags as sb said upthread.

It's the same with Modern Family, which I love: the last few seasons are just the various couples ramping up the disfunction by hiding information from each other to create tension and gags.

For me it's 30 Rock that's timeless. They weren't committed to 22 episodes a seasons so didn't get stale. Same with SATC which has aged beautifully, like Kim Cattrall.

The first two seasons of New Girl were great and then it just became about them dating each other. What a waste. The first season of Arrested Development was excellent and then the wheels fell off. 

 

I like 30 Rock but it was a bit off towards the end. Julianne Moore whom I usually love is horrendous. Among the recent sitcoms I think The Big Bang Theory was good. The addition of Amy and Bernadette really improved the show.

Anyone else used to like Third Rock From The Sun?

I remember thinking it was hilarious. Now? Not so much.

Same with M.A.S.H. But then, I used to watch that with my dad, when I was tiny, and don't think I fully understood it. It went downhill, for me as a kid, when one of the two original funny surgeons left.

Dux - trust me m8 - Queenie is right - there is a constant sexual element to Friends. They are young people dating and discussin sex constantly. But I think its generally done in a pleasant amusing relaxed way. Im very happy for my 13yrd old to learn about sex/dating through Friends.

It almost represents a moment of maximum freedom, before our cultural narrative changed from mild humour about sexual differences to what sometimes feels like a bitter zero sum game of identity politics. Appreciate  that many elements if thst discussuon (metoo etc) are absolutely necessary, but the current zeitgeist just seems so depressing compared to Friends.

The 'current zeitgeist' only exists on twitter and the other echo chambers. When you get out into the real world nobody gives a flying fvck about identity politics. They are all too busy watching made in chelsea and I'm a celebrity. 

Friends is, was and always will be utterly bland.  There is nothing wrong with that. There is a time and a place for telly that is warm chicken soup style comforting. 

Joey would be definitely be cancelled on twitter though if it was airing today. 

Watching the first season again, and it hasn't aged well at all.  Humour has evolved since the 90s, I guess. What really struck me though, was how lovely and charming Phoebe is. Lisa Kudrow did not get enough recognition for this!