I think we can officially can this group dead. No one posts anything about Friends anymore and the surprising thing is there is so little interest in the Joey show. As for the reasons that Joey is such an abysmal failure, I'll repost my comments from last November:
"No, the Joey show has bigger problems. I think the main one is they never really came up with a concept for the show, an over-arching idea that would connect with the viewers and pull them in. All they did is gerrymander a storyline for the Joey character, sending him out to L.A. to meet his sister and look for work. There's nothing that might resonate, to give people a reason to connect with the characters. And it's really an insubstantial show. Friends had a spectrum of personality types, all young, attractive, likable, and there were some real things going on. Ross's divorce, Rachel on her own for the first time, and most important, the idea of a GROUP of friends to help and support each other through their problems. There were characters to identify with, heart-tugging situations and a feeling of warmth that made you want to be a part of this group, to experience the the sort of things they were. What does Joey offer? He has basically devolved, gone back in time, gone back to live with his dysfunctional family. Perhaps this is not surprising. The writers of Friends who came to the Joey show seemed to think the only way to make his character funny was to make him dumber and dumber with each new season. But if Joey is to be the main character on his own show, he must step forward, be more assertive and self-assured. When he behaves like a moron, he is more pathetic than funny. And why did they only put two other characters on the show - and not good ones at that? With five others on Friends, there were opportunities to break between different storylines and pick up the pace moving back and forth. On Joey, if a storyline is not working, you just have to sit through it. Another big problem: there are no female characters on the show. And before you can remember how to spell Drea (or pronounce it), please hear me out. I don't think she is a female character because she doesn't represent the female point of view. Her sort of aggressive tits-forward, loud, lewd, bullying behavior is not attactive or feminine. She's like a parody of a woman, a vulgar caricature that I don't think any woman in America particularly likes or identifies with. Male viewers probably think she has plenty of entertainment value, but I bet most women are just turned off - there goes a big part of your audience. And when she pushes Joey around, it just makes him look weak and sad. He is supposed to be the star of the show, lead the way. Michael is a terrible character because his only function seems to be to make Joey look old and stupid. Supposedly he looks up to his uncle, but all he seems to do is correct him and remind people Joey is a generation older and out of touch. Alex and Bobbi are secondary, incidental characters that aren't particularly attractive or interesting. They're just there for color, and not much of that. All in all, I think the Joey show is a washout. It's not anything like the Friends' show and there is so little to it that viewers have been steadily tuning out, no matter how much they may have liked the Joey character in the past. I'd be very surprised if it makes it to a second season."
In retrospect, I suppose there's a greater possibility that the Joey show will be picked up for a second season simply because NBC (and the other networks) are so bereft of ideas for anything to put in its place. One warning sign, however. If the network moves the show to a different, less prominent time slot, it'll die faster than you can say The Michael Richard's Show.