Turner fuels Friends reunion talk

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seinfeld is the one where you're not supposed to like the characters.

friends was an early seinfeld clone where the writers abandoned that idea.

älänbänänä (alanbanana), Saturday, 28 January 2006 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Friends is a morality play, isn't it?

jel -- (jel), Saturday, 28 January 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link

it is a passion play

kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 28 January 2006 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link

It is a kindergarten play.

truck-patch pixel farmer (my crop froze in the field) (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 28 January 2006 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Is it morally wrong for Joey to drink Chandler's coffee and eat his muffin? If Chandler still had the intention of drinking the coffee and eating the muffin, but was unable to do so because he was stuck in an elevator with hilarious circumstances?

jel -- (jel), Saturday, 28 January 2006 21:05 (eighteen years ago) link

(oh, my tenses)

jel -- (jel), Saturday, 28 January 2006 21:05 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm worried about your prepositions.

Guymauve (Guymauve), Saturday, 28 January 2006 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link

to get back to the first post, I think this is probably more evidence that kathleen turner spends most of her time drunk

kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 28 January 2006 22:09 (eighteen years ago) link

What the hell, I read it a couple of days ago from a Finnish paper that there'll be six new special episodes of Friends, and that they'll last an hour a piece. Or did I dream the whole thing? Not that I care or anything.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 29 January 2006 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, I read about this too. You didn't dream it.

ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 29 January 2006 00:08 (eighteen years ago) link

Emsk, my oldest friend always talked about it that way - he claimed that they carefully created the characters at the start to be not too appalling or loathsome, and gradually made them more and more extreme and unbearable, and kind of carried an audience along with them to the point that they almost failed to spot how dreadful these people were, until the occasional event made them face it, and wonder about how they were willing to so far with them.

I think he's about 50% inventing intentions there, but I kind of approve of that anyway, and it seems a reasonably tenable and quite interesting reading.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 00:18 (eighteen years ago) link

kathleen turner spends most of her time drunk

Actually, she's had severe arthritis for many years and the medication has made her put on a lot of weight and drop out of the business.

Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 29 January 2006 00:48 (eighteen years ago) link

now I feel like an asshold

kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 29 January 2006 00:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Eh, the article I read, she said she made a point of not being public about her illness til v recently, and got used to the "shes a drunk" jibes. I wouldnt feel bad.

Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 29 January 2006 00:54 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't find all of the characters to be appalling. What is appalling about Rachel or Phoebe? The male characters suffer from the "dumb white guy = funny" cliche so ubiquitous on TV. Females have gloriously avoided this awful syndrome.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Phoebe plays dumb on the show too tho.

I liked Friends.

But I cant stand Seinfeld fwiw.

Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:08 (eighteen years ago) link

What is appalling about Rachel

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha OMG

Dan (Let's Start With "EVERYTHING!") Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Well, OK, all of the characters are kind of lame. I just wanted to make the distinction about the male characters as "lame-o = funny" bullshit. (Phoebe being dumb is supposed to be cute - and she redeems herself intellectually by being very intuitive and even psychic - but the guys being dumb is supposed to be pathetic because it's so damn funny when guys are pathetic!)

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 29 January 2006 01:57 (eighteen years ago) link

I remember the only character I used to like in the show was the blonde hippie girl (Rachel?), because she made all these weird and funny comments. But then I got the feeling the weirdness was just played for laughs instead of building her into a sympathetic character.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 29 January 2006 11:50 (eighteen years ago) link

That's Phoebe, Tuomas. I think the problem with "Friends" is that you can't see yourself being friends with any of them, and that's the way it used to be marketed - hey, they're like you, with your lives and your issues and...NO THEY FUCKING AREN'T!!

Once you get over that, it's actually a well-written and, for the most part, funny sitcom. It's nothing special, but with a few dips in form here and there, it managed to remain consistently watchable and provide a fair few giggles over the years. I mean, I didn't CARE whether Ross and Rachel got back together, whether Monica chose Richard or Chandler, etc, I think the writers could have continued to make a comedy round whichever outcome they chose, and I certainly never cared about the characters as people and what path they chose.

If they make these episdoses, I'll watch them, but I don't have very high hopes for them. The fact that Kathleen Turner (one of the most ridiculous cameo appearances/pointless storylines of 10 years of Friends) is involved doesn't bode well.

ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 29 January 2006 12:07 (eighteen years ago) link

What is this nonsense about the MEN being written as particularly dumb? The only two intelligent people in the show are two of the three men - Chandler is a very sharp management type, Ross is a university professor. Joey is the dumbest, the only one who is comedy-stupid in the Homer style, but the three women are all next in line. Phoebe is the least dumb, but she is a dippy hippy with little grasp on reality. Monica's insane compulsiveness and competitiveness give her a sharpness, but she isn't intelligent. Rachel is the most shallow, self-centred and thoughtless character you'll find in mainstream TV, probably.

Getting away from the intellectual side specifically, they all have areas where they are personally strong and areas where they are bad and weak. I can't see that the balance is much different from one character to another, and I certainly can't see any real difference between the men and women in this regard. This is unusual, since the weak man/strong woman (especially in family comedies) has been so prevalent on TV - a relic of sexism that is still there today in quite a few shows. Friends just isn't one of them, though if we ignore brains, the Monica-Chandler relationship more or less plays that way.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 12:17 (eighteen years ago) link

I guess you're right. Just about all of the humor involving the men, though, is centered around them doing or saying something lame or stupid. If that's true to the same extent for the female characters (I'm not sure that it is), then they at least come off as less sort of pathetic in these instances.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 29 January 2006 17:46 (eighteen years ago) link

A website made up the scoop that NBC was preparing a series of four hour-longs. It's since been disproven. You may have read an article that was based on that erroneous information.

sean gramophone (Sean M), Sunday, 29 January 2006 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't think that Monica is supposed to read as unintelligent. Crazy, controlling and nightmarish, but not unintelligent. Rachel isn't a rocket scientist but she's not supposed to be stupid, either. You could make a very strong argument that even though Ross and Chandler have all of the signposts/accolades that people associate with intelligence, they aren't really any smarter than Monica and Rachel; in fact, Monica's career doesn't have the same type of academic path, so she can't really be compared on the same scale, and Rachel spent too much time self-absorbedly looking a husband to be a trophy wife towards to build up academic credentials.

Dan (Fair's Fair) Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Also I'm not sure why we're talking about academic achievement. When the writers sit down and say "Ross/Rachel/Monica does something dumb", they don't mean "fails to conjugate a latin verb".

Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:11 (eighteen years ago) link


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