I'd say early on she was the hottest i nfrends so was most chased and the women liked her hair which dorve exposure... but the reality is he was as dull as dish water and still is. That move meet the millers, ever see that one? her only decent work
If we must be fair, then I'd say it's more a matter of age than time, strictly. I lived through that time but found it unfunny, many younger people I know thought it hysterical. Personal preferences also come into it, but they tend to follow cultural memes rather than being truly individual. The relentless Americanisation of our culture is plain to see for someone of my generation, not quite so easy for those raised within it, it seems.
You try to introduce a little self-deprecation and levity and what happens . . . ? Screw you guys, I'm going home! [video=youtube;zyltK6pmJGg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyltK6pmJGg[/video]
Spot on, saint. My reporter mate is 4 years younger than me and his partner is 4 years younger than him. Whenever I went round for a sesh and a meal, his bird would put episode after episode on. I found it difficult to understand what anyone could get out of the utter shat. He could tolerate it, but she loved it. I think your assertion carries a lot of water. I bet FD Dave doesn't like it either
I see it (or I certainly did while I was in the UK), and I would say I was raised within it. For the record, I find Friends fine for what it is, as long as you don't overhype or attach too much import to what it is.
Americanisation isn't the problem generally, there are a lot of good aspects of American culture that have influenced and continue to influence British life and culture, writers, artists, musicians, comedians. It's the superficial, vacuous things that are the problem. Friends is one of those things. As a comedy show I see it as like Starbucks, formulaic, boring, trying so hard to appeal to everyone that it's humour is humourless. The characters are one note, one dimensional creations and the episodes/plot lines all revolve around the characters' one dimensionality. It makes no attempt to challenge itself. The only credit I can give it is the variety of those plot lines that led to its longevity. The writers truly managed to wring the format beyond its natural shelf-life. Compare that show to Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, Seinfeld, hell, even Modern Family which does a better job at the all inclusive style. They're all a much more challenging watch but still completely entertaining. So it'd be totally unfair to say everything about American culture is bad. It's obviously not.
It's not awful, I'll give you that. It's just alright, bog standard. If you're happy with that then so be it.
That's what I meant. If you want that sort of thing, and there are people that do, and to be honest sometimes you just want something unchallenging, then Friends fills that space. My wife loves it, I find it ok. It's not something I'd put on myself, but I can quite happily watch it with her. I think you're a little harsh in your criticism; although I know where you're coming from, I wouldn't say that it has those faults perhaps to the extent that you're expressing. But that's opinions I guess.
In fairness, my original dig was nothing more than a bit of banter with Gelli, and not meant to be taken seriously. I do stand by my criticism of the American cultural invasion though, with qualifications. There is nothing inherently wrong with American culture- like all things, some of it is good and some bad (and even that distinction is largely down to personal preferences). However, because they produce and export so much of it, it inundates any native culture that will allow it to do so. The deregulation of TV broadcasting times meant that TV had to fill the space with anything they could get- hence the proliferation of cloned cookery/lifestyle/gameshow etc productions, both home-made and imported. I don't want to sound supercilious, but the very fact that people brought up in it don't see the extent to which it has happened, proves my point rather than refutes it. We have become so immersed in it our own identity is being subsumed. Of course things change, and one day all the old farts like me will have popped it and you won't hear any of this. However the next generation will be old farts in our stead and will be saying the same thing about the new tsunami of stuff sailing over the pond.
could be for sure.... it was different i guess.. not at all the same as what we were used to over here... though i feel aside from bottom and only fools and such shows the comedy output here in the 90s wasn't thats great. I think though NOW, 20 years later friends is not very funny at all, other than joey and chandler slapstick (too rare) and there's 1000s shows that are just FN DULL... 2 broke girls for example... not funny. we now get piss poor british tv comdy and the very best is basically stand ups doing games hsows which is also a bit tired. buzzcocks was always good. not the 9 o clock news is dreadful now, qi, 8/10 cats, league fo their own is hilarious for different reasons. But we don't do good sit coms any more. we copy theirs o r they copy ours. eg 70s show, shameless, the office. (the american version of each is much better than ours) I prefer British stand up totally (barring young eddie Murphy) but once tv gets invovled it goes to pot or strict formulae. thats my view. the big bang theroy is the best current tv comdey show cos its just one guy with lots of back up characters (to my view) and the other stuff they put around it is almost friends like just to set up the jokes
never liked curb.. in fact hated it but thats just a reaction to main character. seinfeld was I am sorry just as one dimensional in characters as friends.. but the characters were brilliant. you know who everyones favorite was..... modern family follows a genre like simpsons and south park btuthe wit and characters are just hilarious.
The first series or two of Big Bang Theory I really liked, as they at least tried to put some proper science jokes in (at least from my layman's perspective) so the humour was different to normal sitcoms. Now it's basically descended to Friends with geeks.
I actually liked BBT as well in the beginning. They obviously ran out of ideas pretty quickly and the rise of the female characters in it completely undermined its premise. I mean, the idea that a girl like whatsername would fall for a repellent creep like Wolowitz is less credible than Schrodinger's cat theory.
Come off it, MITO Father Ted, Partridge, League of Gentlemen, Brittas Empire etc. Anyway. There's a ****ing thread for this ****, so take it out of the Cheese
I never liked Joey. Worse... when friends ended and of all the characters to base a spin-off show of they choose Joey. Joeywas one of the worst sit-com ever- one Joey wasn't enough- they had to make a female Joey too! That's kind of how I felt about Friends. It was OK. My wife loved it, so I watched it with her because she had to see it. Couldn't tolerate watching the Joey sitcom though... Only tried watching BBT a couple of times... don't know which series. I found it completely unwatchable the acting was so awful and stereotyped. The characters were way too flat... I hate laugh tracks (I thought TV was supposed to be moving away from them now). Not sure how BBT is so popular. Modern Family looks good the odd episode of it that I've seen! I liked Frasier. Coupling (UK version) was good- and I liked Wilfred (US version) for the first season- went downhill after that. Peep show has one funny episode a season. The rest are cack- but it's worth watching for that one good episode.
