..... this show is terrible. I was wondering if there are any other people out there that think this is as bad as I think it is. Also, if you do like this show .... could you tell me why? My aunt and my step-mother watch this all the time. I'd say they are crazy.

Sillyboy, maybe it would help if you told us WHY you think the show is terrible.

I have numerous reasons as to why I don't find this show appealing at all.

1) Not funny .... I admit the episodes I have watched I may have chuckled but I am not interested in a show where I almost know the joke ahead of time. They spend a lot of the time setting up the joke instead of making jokes. Too predictable.

2) Bad Acting .... All six of these actors/actresses are really bad at acting. Have you seen any of their movies? Terrible! I've seen better acting from Keanu Reeves.

3) The Writers .... I have no idea who writes for this show but if I saw them on the street I would be so inclined to walk up to them and steal their wallets. (kidding) The plot lines for this show are (word of the thread) terrible. Am I to believe that they all have spacious Manhattan apartments with the jobs they have. Now of course they have decent paying jobs but what exactly does Phoebe do? I remember Rachel being a waitress and Joey a struggling actor. No problems with the rent apparently.

4) David Schwimmer

Now I know most of you have different views on this but this is how I see the show. I am a huge fan of Strangers With Candy. It is no longer on the air but it was hilarious while it lasted. I know some of you will disagree or have never seen or heard of the show. I look forward to the ribbing I shall receive from this thread. Bear in mind that this is the opinion of a 20-something male. And I am sure you disagree with what I just said.

er.........I find Joey 'slightly' amusing?

shhhhhhh.......don't tell anyone I said that!
wez

It's not reality...and it's not supposed to be.

TV is all about entertainment...
I think if you left the reality check at the door.
You'd enjoy it more.

I know all the stuff that you said, yet I still enjoy the show.

It's just entertainment...don't take it so seriously.

What comedy is real life???

I love that show. You can't help but think it is funny. Of course everyone has their own opinions.
It is exactly what everyone is saying. It's entertainment. What kind of shows do you like?

Friends is one of the best tv shows ever

I like this show. Although,I do admit that the whole job thing REALLY irritates me.

I have been watching the show for 8 years. As long as it has been on! First of all it irritates me when people say they hate the show and yet watch it. If you don't like it don't watch it. Yes, Ross has turned into a loser, but look past that. You have a loser in every show. Wasn't Candy a loser in that show you mentioned? I don't think their movies where very good either. But they act well on the show. About no humor. Yeah, the number one comedy has no humor. I laugh until I cry in every episode. I think you would have had to have "grown up" with them maybe to appreciate them as I do. I think because it has gotten so big and just about everyone likes the show, it brings out people like you who autoatically think that something this good and big should be put down so I am not going to like it and be different.
If none of this makes since I am sorry. I just woke up and sitting at my desk at work so I am not in the best place right now.
Later

I'm with you 'girl'!

Yeah, been with the show from its start.
I like what I like.
and I don't like what I don't like.

wow, that was deep...

Well, thank you Lord Andry! You are quite the philosopher.

Just like snugglesgirl I have watched the show forever. I've never missed and episode. If by some chance I do miss a show i'll probably go through some sort of depression. Phoebe gives massages. I don't know how to spell it so sorry if I can't get technical. Obviously the writers must be doing something right to make the show a hit.
Sorry to get off the subject but I've got a question. What do you have against Keanu Reeves? He did a great job in Point Break and in Speed. The movies that the Friends stars have done were good movies. snugglesgirl had a point. Why are you watching the show if you think it has bad acting and isn't funny?

hey there sillyboy

i love 'friends'. i used to be able to claim that i had never missed an episode, but now the satellite/cable channels in their wisdom air it at the same time as 'buffy' and 'angel' so i have to wait until second chance sunday which i keep missing - arrrrrghhhh !!!!

i agree with stargazer, what's wrong with keanu - i think he has been great in many films.

I only watch the show when either my girlfriend or my brother's girlfriend make me watch it. Granted I never saw Point Break so i can't say anything about Keanu in that, but he certainly was terrible in The Matrix, Sweet November, Hardball or any other movie that you could think of. He is NOT a good actor. I would say you are drunk if you think he is a good actor.

I agree with sillyboy. I can not stand that guy. Watching him act is like pulling teeth or something alot worse than that.

I happen to like Keanu Reeves. I also happen to be very very drunk. And so I like you too and all your friends.

hey, i don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of ' Friends ' I happen to love love this show.

Well as I read this thread last night, the kids happened to be watching the only tapes we have of it.
And I went in and tried to force myself to watch it.
Of course I see what people like about it, but I think it's just like Coke or Pepsi, some people prefer one and others another, the taste is kind of similar. (I'll get flak over that now!)
I personally must force myself to watch Friends as though I like sitcoms and watch some as the French tv is so boring, I still haven't ever really understood what the pull was.

I'm thinking it might be my age in this instance and the kind of been there done that sort of thing.
I love Seinfeld which represents a different age group, I like Cheers too. Frasier is my all time favorite though.
Friends makes me grit my teeth.
But why? If you know me well enough, I'm very open and not a snob, I like comedy too.
I watch some of the sillier ones too here. We don't get much of anything, and I can watch those but Friends bothers me.

I think it's because it's something I've already seen and done, in my youth..the whole boyfriend girlfriend thing and where the one breaks it off with the other one and then they go out together..
And there's something missing for me.

THey do it in Frasier and Seinfeld too and other series but I find they have a little more something to sink my teeth into.

Could just be my age though.

I don't think it is your age, my mom is 50 and it is her favorite show. Maybe your just wierd. That was a joke. I agree with you, athough I love the show, I understand some people won't. Just like I can't stand ER someone else might like it. Please don't kill me because I said that.

[ 05-01-2002, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: snugglesgirl ]

My mom's coming up on 50 (I'm so glad she doesn't read this forum... ) and she's the one who introduced me to the show! I love watching Friends, even re-runs, but I don't grit my teeth if I miss a new episode. Heck, I can't even remember the last time I watched the first broadcast of a new one!

Bruyere - good choice with Frasier! That's one of my favourites. I love Niles!

snugglesgirl - you're not alone. I can't stand ER! It's one of those shows that started out being really good, and then turned all soap opera-y.

Well ER, I could watch it for Clooney.
But we won't do anything to you for expressing your opinion, otherwise you'd have to be admitted to ER, huh?
Just joking.
I think what I find missing from Friends but it could be me, is the different rich layers of comedy, like Cheers for example, has jokes that are way over a lot of people's heads, with Frasier and Lilith, or Diana, and then you have the other layer, that I find funny too.
I like the clash between the different levels of society. You've got Woody and his tractor accidents and naivety and then you've got Diane and her snobbery, yet she finds herself attracted to Sam whom she considers a true philistine. Rebecca is more business oriented with degrees and all these strategies she's learned and yet when she tries to apply them in reality, they fall flat.
Friends, I just don't find this convincing. I mean, which one is a scientist? Ross? Sorry I'll probably get his name wrong, but he just doesn't convince me of him being a scientist. Sure he could be socially a little inept, but the character isn't being played convincingly to me.
I mean Frasier is a guy who comes into the bar and participates in life but you know that his professional life is quite different. In Cheers.
Whereas Ross I can't imagine him participating in discussions with Ph Ds and yet being a normal guy with his buddies.

Frasier seems funny as the variety of characters seems like a bigger palette of colors somehow.
That's it, Friends doesn't seem to have as wide a range.
Frasier you seem to have such more variety in your characters.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a snob and I actually enjoy some of the older ones we get here in French though you don't watch them much anymore anywhere else. French TV is so dull that I enjoy watching these things from time to time.
I even enjoy the Nanny when they put it on, though now they've put the one called Step by Step I think. Duffy and Somers?
I enjoy the Britcoms too, immensely.

Friends lacks depth. That's it. I'm not looking for something profound, but it's like eating a meal and something's missing.

I can tell I'll need a visit to ER now!
I just kept wondering why Friends left me with a bland taste too.

I don't usually like to correct people on things but Ross isn't a scientist. He's a professor at a university. He deals with Paleontology. Which is like dinosaurs and things like that. I'm sorry that I corrected what you said. I just sort of had to. It was an impulse. Sorry.

It's fine that you don't agree with me about a paleontologist being a scientist but in general, a paleontologist is considered a scientist. If you study it at a university level, you'll do your main work in the sciences. It's often classified under the Earth Sciences.
You need to be able to determine how old the dinosaurs' bones are, how to reconstruct the skeleton to see what it might have looked like, its habitat, its food. You often use devices to calculate how old the specimen is, make theories, that sort of thing.
If you do a random search, you'll find it normally pops up in Earth Sciences on Yahoo for example.
I think the Friends episode I saw was when he was eating at the table with the other "Doctors" at the museum where he was working, and his friend Joey wasn't invited to sit at the same table as he was just a docent or guide or something.
And then he made a point of sitting with his buddy.
As these sorts of positions are so hard to get in real life, and you need to do a doctorate plus additional research, I just don't feel that Ross convinces me. Frasier can talk about sports and then talk about Freud, but Ross? I can't imagine him coming up with Sir Richard Owen who came up with the term dinosaur in the 1900s. My imagination doesn't stretch that far!
I have a few scientist friends who like to have fun like anyone else, but they also are very knowledgable in their own fields etc. They can talk about television shows, and sports and then turn right around and speak about experiments.
So perhaps this is why I find the show doesn't amuse me as much as Friends or Seinfeld or Cheers.

As to Seinfeld, it's not exactly highbrow or anything, but you do get some really funny things for everyone. You haven't got Kramer supposedly working as a brain surgeon but...oops...what does Kramer do?
I can picture Elaine working at a publisher's. Or Seinfeld as a comic. The other fellow a postman.
Norm looks like a former accountant turned decorator. Sam looks like a baseball player turned bar owner.

Ok, if you wanted to hire Meryl Streep and Pamela Anderson to play brain surgeons, who would you choose?
George Clooney plays a good doctor though, he convinces me.

OK, first of all he is not a real paleontologist. Also, as I have seen every episode, there are episodes where he is talking about his work and he is very smart about it. Ever heard of a dorky scientist? People don't always have to match their job. That would be boring. My old friend is in school to be a lawyer. She is very good at law, but she also parties all the time. Its like you are stereotyping scientists. Ross, the character, does know his science stuff. He is just a dork.