The other night, with a slightly sadistic bent and the absence of an easily accessible pencil to poke my eye out with, I made myself sit and watch the entire first episode of FRIENDS.
Partly because Jennifer Aniston – who I really can’t watch unless she’s alongside somebody funny – like Adam Sandler – did go on to become an actual actor; and I was intrigued to see where she came from. And partly because of the subtle cross-over with Mad About You – which we do watch, where Lisa Kudrow plays a minor mindless blonde bimbo – as opposed to her role in FRIENDS – which seems to be a major mindless blonde bimbo.
Now, I would like to simply say, what a complete load of drivel and sign off.
But I just can’t. It warrants more critique than that.
If you’re not familiar with FRIENDS, please don’t go near that rabbit hole. I can tell you now, the only joke in Episode 1 – and I use that term loosely – was, in fact, Pheobe (played by Kudrow) describing her near disastrous life so far, ending with “and then I found aromatherapy.” I may have smiled; but it wasn’t enough. I could already feel braincells dribbling out of my right ear onto the couch.
If you are familiar with the show; and even mebbe disagree with me, I would ask you to consider your life choices.
Nothing – and I cannot stress this enough – not one nano-second of the show, not a single mediocre line, badly delivered, not one forced over-chuckle from the fake audience would even begin to persuade me to sit and watch another minute of it. I absolutely cannot understand the appeal. As art, they make The Big Bang Theory look like the Mona Lisa; and to be honest, I think The Simpsons have more personality. Mad About You demonstrates comedy timing; Crane & Kauffman seem to consider that the playbook of old people and intentionally ignore it.
It was disjointed, unrealistic (I mean, a soaking wet bride stumbles into a cafe at an indeterminate time of day, and no one – not one person – remarks on it, or even looks up – until they have a line to say; of course not – it was in the script; why should it surprise them?) and plotless. The character development you expect from a pilot or 1st episode never happened. Everyone just talked their lines as if we already knew who they were, and were just filling in time.
And what is this predilection to try and create ‘poignant moments’ in sitcoms ? The ‘com’ part of sitcom means comedy. You don’t get to be poignant – you’re supposed to be funny; nobody feels sorry for you if they’ve only just met you. For goodness sake, go and watch Faulty Towers.
