Entertainment Weekly

Well, Entertainment Weekly remains in the pocket of the production staff of Friends. The cast is indeed trying to decide if they want to continue the series at the end of season six. The Hot Sheet says of this: "Would YOU want people fussing over your hair and makeup all day long for a lousy $100,000 a week?" Implication: the actors are just greedy and should be grateful for their situation. I have to say I REALLY think the magazine has been paid by Warner Brothers (or merely ordered, as WB owns them) to present the show in a particular light. They are to praise the quality no matter what and to side against the cast and with the producers under any circumstance. I have heard that David is tired of the shallow material; Lisa Kudrow has interesting film roles awaiting her; Courteney wants a baby. Possibly, just possibly, they think there is more to life than money.

Quite frankly, I think this show, once so delightful, is getting really stale. Marry C&M off, put R&R back together, find some career stability for Phoebe and Joey. Let them all leave that now overlong period in their life where they are about to make choices. Let them make the choices and bid us adieu before this really gets bad.

Claire Abraham wrote:

We wouldn't want to see this show get like the last season of "Mad About You" (yes, the finale was excellent, but most of the shows that regular season ... blech).

They seem to be trying as hard as possible to keep the characters in their late 20s. It's one thing to have no idea where you're going then, but if you're still thrashing about in your 30s, you need help. These characters, if they keep things as they are, are on the verge of becoming really pathetic (not to mention Ross who already is pathetic, if not bathetic).

Jonathan Roberts wrote in message news:[email]...

(What's bathetic mean?) So, there's the question of having the characters mature somewhat, and take on more "adult" roles. If C&M do get married and have kids, I doubt the show will suffer that much because of it. The only character I see as "thrashing" is Phoebe. She wanted to find her dad, and she did that, so now what? If Phoebe has any major goals (her singing, her masseuse skills) they should accencuate that. If BK&C wants to keep things the way they are, they will simply have to put in new younger characters. I worried about this a while ago. New, younger characters appear in recurring roles with similar "just out of college and very confused about adulthood" outlooks Our Friends had in the first season. I don't know if WB and NBC would really risk dropping the whole cast and putting a whole new group of actors in Central Perk, but these are the same people who renew Suddenly Susan every year. Also, Enterainment Weekly only started saying "Friends" could do no wrong when the show got it's big resurgence in Season 5. There was some knocks against Friends in season 3 & 4, if I remember correctly.

Bobby C.

"Fun" ROBERT COAKLEY wrote:

The fast-paste-in answer from EB is

bathos
     (from Greek bathys, "deep"), unsuccessful, and therefore
     ludicrous, attempt to portray pathos in art, i.e., to evoke pity,
     sympathy, or sorrow.

The portrayals of the others aren't so great. Monica has become head chef in a restaurant, but one where everyone hates her. Rachel's boss hates her. Ross, if in truth not working at the museum, has no visible means of support. Joey's an actor so incompetent he can't keep straight a two-word phrase for a commercial spot.

None of these situations speaks well for future stability. Maybe they can end the show with everyone buying an AK-47 and blowing away their respective work sites.

I don't know that BK&C have much to do with the running of the show at the moment -- they're too busy doing other programs which aren't funny. I'd think they'd care enough about their characters to do something worthy of them. The current bunch of writers don't seem to care to have the characters advance beyond the emotional age of 11. Pardon me, that's a slight to 11-year-olds.

Actually, they seem to have explained that away in a tossaway line. He must have gotten the lecturing position at NYU. He mentioned to Joey that he could cheer him up over losing Janine by having Joey come to his next lecture.

That does puzzle me. Why are they putting so much effort into their bad shows with mediocre casts when and neglecting this show, which used to be very good, and has a wonderful cast?

This show had a very short premise to begin with. It was always billed as the young hip trendy show of twentysomethings. The struggle to make ends meet with that first paycheck out of college, sex and dating in the 90s, being out on your own, that sort of thing. First mistake, It began with characters already halfway into their 20s. But where it really took a lethal turn was when long term relationships where not just inroduced, but made the centerpiece of the show. Its taken a comedy show and slowly begun to turn it into a soap opera.

I think its time to end it. Although since we already know what happens up to 615 i dont think and ending is likely now, unless its a sloppy slipshod ending. And ending takes more than 9 eps to do, it should be at least 12

Hellooooo!!! After getting drunk in Vegas, Claire Abraham doodled cat whiskers on his/her face and miaowed this little lot at a statue...

That means he must have overcome his fear of public speaking, then.

On a completely unrelated note, am I the only one who's *certain* that the next time Ross gets drunk (and it *will* happen :)), someone's going to designate 'Alcohol' by BNL as his theme tune? :)

Are they putting in more effort? It's not noticable (at least in VC - we don't have Jesse over here). It is strange, though - when one or both shows are inevitably cancelled, they'll *have* to be putting a lot more effort into Friends in order to make sure it avoids the same fate. Friends is still very good... when the writers can be bothered, that is. That's what really comes across, more than anything - the impression that a lot of the writers just can't be bothered and are just pumping out mediocre scripts so as they can go home, rather than putting loads of effort into them to make sure they're the best they can be. Somehow, I get the feeling that if BKC went back to Friends full time, that would change very quickly. (And that's another reason why I want them to write another episode.)

Tina

In article , [email] wrote:

Quite an interesting idea, Wendy.

Tennant

[email] wrote:

I had a similar idea. Something totally different and groundbreaking for a sitcom to try. I thought they could do an hour special where they didn't focus on being a 'sitcom', but a more serious show (not that they couldn't put some humour in it, though!). I don't mean like a Melrose-Place nighttime soap, but more along the lines of a show with a "Felicity" -level seriousness. Something that would show us a little more depth with each of the characters, and (above all) something that is CONSISTENT with the context of the show (i.e. no weird time-line or otherwise anomolies). Something that would allow us to see more to these "Friends" than the same old same old. . . Maybe Judy Gellar dies, maybe one of them has a cancer-scare, or a brush with death that opens their eyes. 30th birthday/ age scare is also a good idea. I don't know. I'm sure I could come up with something not terribly corny or canned if I thought about it for more than 2 minutes.

Maybe the actors would relish an opportunity to play a more serious side to their characters once in a while, but I think they would have to bring in some "specialty" writers who are good at this sort of thing, with some experience in both sitcoms and sit-drama shows. I don't think many of the current batch could pull it off very well.