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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m with you, OP. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now![/quote]'

Another +1.

But I'll add that I do see why it was a hit (though don't see why it was a hit for SO long--it seems really to have gone on and on and on....). I think there was nothing quite like it when it premiered, it sold an escapist image of Big City Life (those apartments! Cute relationships! Every conflict will get resolved!), many folks found the cast appealingly funny even when the plots and scripts were meh. It was about the cast, chemistry, rather than the plots. I haven't ever been able to sit through a whole episode but talking with friends who were big fans in the day and who watch it sometimes now, those seem to be their takes on it.

So I kind of get why it was a big deal for a long time. I just never could get into it. I like some very goofy sitcoms, too, so honestly I don't have a stick up my backside, I just wasn't susceptible to the chemistry of the beautifuls in the impossiibly cool NY setting.  And I'm not saying that to be superior or whatever--my most intelligent friend is a Friends fan (ha), and I've got to respect it!

I will say, the Friends cast did one very smart thing that influenced other casts. They negotiated as a group for their pay as the show went on and they realized how massively popular they were as an ensemble. They could have all negotiated separately but they chose to do it as a united front. I don't think any other cast was doing that at the time. That was incredibly savvy of them as actors, protecting their careers and incomes like that. It's a business, after all, and none of them was massively popular or hugely known before the show began. [/quote]

They weren't impossibly cool, though. That was part of the appeal. They were relatable. They weren't, like, Chloe Sevigny, Winona Ryder, and Parker Posey out on a night on the town. They were basic kids from the suburbs trying to make it in the city - with all the highs and lows. (The possible exception was Phoebe who probably did hang out with the cool kids but also loved these friends, too.) Sex and the City was much more aspirational (whatever, it was). Friends was about people you might actually hang out with, or be (of course much better looking, with much better apartments, but still).

And they had some really relatable plot lines! There was an episode where the three friends who were struggling financially had to have a come to Jesus talk with the three who were doing well, just to name one. It coined phrases we still use today - who doesn't know "we were on a break"?

There really wasn't anything else like it on TV at the time.

That said I don't quite understand why kids today are so into it! I would love to know about that. I remember maybe five years ago seeing a teenager wearing a Friends t-shirt in an airport, and I stopped her to ask why she was wearing it. She said she'd been watching old episodes with her mom. But now I see Friends merch everywhere - so apparently all these kids are watching it with their moms? [/quote]

I loved friends at the time and the reruns still make me laugh. I agree that it was unique at the time and really spoke to a lot of Gen Xers. I definitely had a similar friends with money/ friends without experience so that episode was really relatable.

It's a fun nostalgic experience to watch it now. When it launched I was just out of college. I got married the same month as Monica and Chandler. When the series ended with their adopted twins being born, I was pregnant. [/quote]

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