ok. When I first got here roundabout January, I had only seen like Season 1. Today I got the season 4 DVDs, so I've actually watched the first 4 seasons plus all episodes that have aired of the 8th AND I'M REALLY PISSED!!
When I started watching Season 1, I was watching because it was funny, then halfway thru Season 1, I got so caught up into R&R that it became the most important thing to me, "friendswise", and it stayed like that until Season 3, when it got obvious really fast, that they cant come up with any good stories for their big happy couple (301 was so lame...) - and when they threw in this whole jealousy thing it just got worse and worse. For me there were moments, where I had to force myself to watch, like the scene where Ross comes to Rachel's office and Mark is fooling around with that other girl, but Ross mistakes it and thinks it is Rachel who he's making out with. So they finally decide to break them up, because the writers are incapable of coming up with good material... Shouldnt they (the writers that is...) have learned their lesson BACK THEN? I mean, the initial phase of bitching around (like TOW the ski trip) was ok with me, since it was believable, but after that, they lead us up to TOA the beach, which made it look like R&R were gonna work on their problems, but on retrospective, all it showed was just that Rachel cant stand the idea of Ross being happy in another relationship after he's been with her. So next we get that letter and a lot of mind games (I really loved those scenes "maybe they're fighting over who manages to bring home the biggest geek!?" "fine by me, I hope she wins" *rofl*).
Then these two finally switch back to normal, and Ross really seemed happy with Emily and vice versa, and until the moment Ross announced that they're getting married, Rachel was rather supportive of his relationship - except for maybe her initial freaking out, when Ross went to Vermont with Emily. And what happened in the London episodes was just ever so unbelievable to me. How can Rachel not know that she is still in love with Ross? I mean she was up in tears, when she talked to Phoebe and Monica about how she and Ross were "always on and off" and that she figured one day they'd be "on". However, I think she really cant be blamed for Ross saying Rachel at the altar, because she did nothing to provoke such a thing, and she was invited afterall. But we can blame the writers for coming up with such a f*cked up story... What is it with those people? They admitted they couldnt handle this couple together, so they split them up. Why bother teasing people with a possible re-union for bloody 5 years (from mid-S3 until now) then?? I think Season 4 marks the point where the character of Ross starts getting screwed up all over by the writing staff to an extent that just doesnt suit a comedy show.
Now as I said above, I've only watched the first four seasons and 801-815, but I've read about the other episodes on www.friends-tv.org, so I have a rough idea of what happens from S5-S7, but I've got to say that I think this whole Monica & Chandler thing blows, reason #1 being that I cant stand Monica, mostly she's either annoying with her insane cleaning habits or she's just plain boring, I really cant think of any funny Monica scenes. Reason #2 would be that this relationship has seriously affected the best thing there ever was on Friends and that is Joey and Chandler together in #19. These two can pull of anything together. There were numerous times they had me laughing so hard, they nearly had me up in tears twice (when Joey moved out and when Joey let Chandler out of the box). Now a lot of people seem to dislike the box thing, but it was just Chandler's way of showing how much Joey meant to him, and that he was willing to do everything to make up for betraying Joey with his girl friend. They always seemed the closest out of the six to me, with Joey being the best "friend" anyway, his take on friendship can only be admired IMHO.
Oh, I am getting off-focus *g* The point of this post is: Why did they have to turn this into a soap opera? All people seem to care about nowadays is the "who with whom" (and what's with that whom running gag anyway?). If they wanted to hook Chandler and Monica up, fine by me, but not at the expense of good and funny Joey and Chandler stories. And if they figured they cant handle Ross and Rachel together way back in Season 3, why bother having them going through all that crap, like Ross screwing up the wedding with Emily though he really seemed to love her - and that drunken wedding in Vegas?? WTF was that? IIRC Season 5 might well have been the last one, so they were planning to end Friends on a drunk Ross&Rachel getting married? And even more, why did they have to write in this pregnancy 5 YEARS after the R&R relationship ended? Cant they think of any other good stories? It seems to me that Phoebe never got as much attention as she deserved, she never had any major story arcs except for the pregancy, and even that was kept rather small compared to all the fuss about Rachel's pregnancy.
Ok, I've rambled on for long enough though and since it's rather late and I really need to get my thoughts straight till I shall dare write anything more I'll stop right here :-)
Andre