This episode is sunk in my rankings for two reasons:
1. It's a clip show that didn't even really have funny clips in it. You know the show's in trouble when they can't even put funny moments together properly.
2. The very end of the episode, the interviewer asks Joey about his love life, and they show Joey hitting on Janine, Phoebe, and some girls checking out his Porsche. But incredibly, they make not one reference to Rachel, even though it was not 3 episodes ago that Joey told Ross that Rachel was the only person he had fallen in love with.
They are trying to drop this J&R thing like a bad habit, and it is really taking away the believability this show put out in the first 14-15 episodes of the season that made the show so solid to watch.
Let's just hope the writers have something up their sleeves, because it's getting really annoying for them to carry on like nothing happened.
I didn't read the post but I'm assuming this is a response to Paul's 819 post. You've removed the 819 from the subject. Please don't do that. People may get spoiled unknowingly. Please don't change the subject's.
I didn't intentionally change anything in the subject line. I'm not sure how the 819 got dropped, but it did definitely drop with my post. So, I'm stumped. I would never intentionally remove anything that might alert someone to a spoiler.
Just so you know, I have been diligent (by intent at least) to head the message you sent a few days ago. :-) So, I haven't added the 819 back into the subject line but I have added an explanation for the space below.
Hehe. No worries. I just posted in this same thread that, 'I've all respect for the writers', when it should have been 'I've lost all respect for the writers'. :)
I know you won't do that. I guess Google must be freaking out then. I see it as a separate thread. If the subject was changed, Outlook would show it as a different thread too. I guess its different for different newsreaders. I dunno.
Thanks. :)
Ignoring a major storyarc completely left me so mad, I couldn't enjoy many of the old clips. Last week, I was arguing that Joey has been reduced to Food Joey. Well, here he was Food Joey, Dumb Joey and Womaniser Joey, Never-in-love-with-Rachel Joey or I-have-serious-amnesia Joey! What the hell? Do the writers think that little story in 817 was the end of it?
Marta Kauffman said in an interview that they don't know where they'll go with this story and they were making it up as they went. What happened? Did they all get writer's block all of a sudden that they can't think up a decent way to continue the story or at least end it gracefully? I am so mad. Grrr..
David, I think some of the stuff got cut off when I was talking in the other thread to you, it seemed Google was messed up at the time. I did not direct any of my frustration at you, so I hope we're ok on that.
"David Buehrle" wrote in message news:...
What new stuff was there? The only part I noticed was Chandler wearing the hat in the box fort.
It's getting to the point where they seem to be going out of their way not to mention it again, in the hopes that people will forget about it and start embracing R&R again.
I think it's becoming very clear now what the creator's intention for the storyline, (a way for Joey to develop), and the way a lot of the viewing public had accepted it (a new romance for two roommates and best friends), is dangerously different. This isn't one of those 4 episode story arcs Chandler & Joey had when they were fighting about living together, or with Chandler kissing Kathy, because those had a definite closure as friendships are a lot easier to wrap up and move on from than love interests.
But in real life, don't you think the only person you said you were in love with would pop into your head not, of all people, Janine?
um..That was not new. I think they showed a little extra of Joey's freud song. Were there any more?
Tell me about it. I was so disgusted with the episode, I've all respect for the writers. What a cheap ratings stunt!
For Rachel to joke about the baby being Joey's was in bad taste. Geez! What's next? Get Joey and Phoebe together? ugh!
Surprised you didn't put this on the bottom of your list. I didn't like 818 but it grew on me a little when I watched it again. So, I watched 819 and nothing. It's pathetic.
Some of them were funny if you remember the episodes around them, but for the first time viewer there wasn't much to laugh at. Anyhow, there were some Dumb Joey jokes that I still like. e.g. Chandler: "If only there were something in your head that control the things you say."; Joey: "[...]so you can stop we, when, you know, I start to say something stupid." Ross: "Just then.. or-or all the time? Because we have jobs, you know."
The very end was that Joey *slept* with the interviewer and another gay joke on Ross. Is he over Rachel now, or what? (No, not Ross, damnit.)
Yes that was incredibly stupid by the creators. They seem to have realized they couldn't come out of the whole Joey loves Rachel thing, so they're pretending now it's never happened. Inconsequent plot planning which shouldn't occur in a sitcom were there is character development, in opposite to e.g. The Simpsons. I hope even you are now convinced they dropped this whole plot, because they didn't know how to handle it gratefully any further. I expected the episode to deal a lot with Joey's feelings in mid-season, and was wrong. Nevertheless there're two points that might a little bit explain it: The interviewer and the reading audience are completely strangers, so it's not their businnes whom Joey fells in love with, as long as it's not another soap star. Second, the rest of the gang was listening, including gal pal Rachel Green.
Oh, you obviously see it the same way.
No, I was wrong. It's still you, being optimistic for what you want to happen in the show, i.e. J&R. IMHO it's too late now to bring up the story again after 2 episodes without even mentioning it. Rachel, who annoyed me once again with her soap mania, could even say that her baby might be Joey's without making him seriously mad, but Ross. I'm really not happy about how they're handling it, but I feel reliefed, the thing is over as I said before it didn't fit into my picture of Joey and Friends (has less to do with R&R).
Positive stuff first: It was very entertaining in places - for a clip show. I think the reason why this didn't suck entirely is because Joey really is an extremely effective character. All six Friends have an Achille's heel of some kind, and in most places that fault makes the audience like the character less. Joey's fault is his ignorance and intermittent foolishness, and these benign problems take nothing away from his loveability. I actually really liked the clips montages, which included scenes I'd forgotten for years in some cases. The gay montage made me laugh the loudest. I laughed a number of times. So sue me.
I have to agree that the Joey/Rachel thing was handled with disturbing shallowness. I was looking for a comment or something that indicated Joey had worked through his feelings about Rachel and was comfortable with his situation. They had the opportunity to do that in the section on Joey's love life, but they avoided mentioning her like the plague. The reason why this was jarring is not only that he did not speak of her, but that a large segment of the sequence took place inside his memory, and he did not *think* of her! Now, I consider Joey the most emotionally stable and healthy person of the Friends. It's been over a month since Rachel turned him down, and I could see him finding a way to interact in a warm, generous manner towards both of his very dear friends (R&R) without showing palpable awkwardness or resentment. But the interviewer asked about his love life and Rachel didn't even cross his mind? In *real* life, that kind of reaction would almost have to indicate that what he felt for her at the time was infatuation rather than real love. Now, this is a sitcom, and the characters feel whatever the writers tell us they feel, but it seems unfortunate that the writers set him up to be in love and took him down to be over a mere crush.
Like I have said in other posts, it ain't the first time they've done this kind of thing. Really kind of annoying.
The one thing that really made me squirm the most was Rachel's pushy behavior during the interview. She suggested that she was carrying Joey's baby, and called herself his "galpal." Rachel practically tried to sell herself as a potential love interest for Joey, (at least from the magazine's point of view) and NOBODY picked up on why this was insensitive to *Joey*. Ross growled a little about the idea that his paternity was challenged, as he should have, but Joey didn't seem to behave as if it were anything worse than kind of a silly and irrelevant lie. Finally, Joey slept with the interviewer just to get his story changed. That means my own hope about the Joey storyline, which is that he had developed a more adult and meaningful perspective on sex and romance, is also out the door.
Hmpf. Well, at least I laughed in places, though most of the things that made me laugh were several years old.
I did like the gay montage, and Joey hitting on the women, but I had already seen those so there was no incentive to laugh there.
I think they are trying to get us to forget about Joey & Rachel as quick as possible, but it just doesn't work that way.
The reason why
Maybe it *was* all a ratings scam in the grand scheme of things. Build up this believable set of feelings and sweetness between characters just in time for February sweeps, and I recall 29 million viewers tuned in on average, and once that's over, knock it down as quickly as possible, and then try to pull the same thing with Ross and Rachel in time for May sweeps. It's a disgusting way to write the show, and play with feelings like that, but bottom line is if there is interest there, then people will tune into see it no matter how crummy the writing is.
But not nearly on this kind of level.
I think the "Joey sleeping with the interviewer" bit was primarily for the joke, and not plot development. In addition, he was forced into that position since he would have probably lost his job and fanbase if the last quote of his got into the magazine.
And it's even worse when the story is rotten as well.
I'm glad you liked it, because I was waiting with baited breath to see what you thought about it...
And in a sense, yes he was "forced" into a situation out of his own stupidity. Kind of like how people are forced to do something when they are being blackmailed. He would have lost his career if he didn't sleep with the interviewer, in order for her to remove the quote from the magazine.
But this is a silly point to argue. The line was solely there for a joke. If it was intended as plot development, they wouldn't have stuck it on the end of the tag scene.
Why the hell do you always have to be such a sarcastic moron?
Poor guy. He *had* to have sex with the interviewer. I am sure it was such a drag for him, like all the other times he has done it.
I didn't make a comment to argue with you. You are so damn competitive, you think that everything posted is a personal attack at you. Even if you see the line as a joke, which is of course your opinion and you are entitled to it, people are allowed to disagree with you.
Probably the same reason you feel the need to be condescending towards me.
Well, if he didn't sleep with her...he would have lost his job...he would have run out of money...he would be out of a place to live. Yeah, so he kind of was forced to do it.
If you didn't want to argue, why did you feel the need to make that comment about my opinion? It's kind of silly to expect someone not to respond to some remark made at their expense.
No, you are just hostile towards anyone who comments something you have said. All i did was comment something you said and you reply with your usual sarcastic ways...
such a
You got to be kidding...
you
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to
Well, I wanted to comment something you said, that's all. why do you think that everyone who comments something you have said wants to argue with you???? Of course I expect you to reply but not as if someone is picking a fight with you. Am I to assume that nobody is allowed to comment on anything you have said without you thinking he is your enemy? What are? 12 years old?
I would hardly call my sarcastic response "hostile". What do you want me to do, smile and say thank you for making light of my opinion?
You're right, I am. It is a ridiculous idea to suggest someone would demand sex in return for a favor.
Maybe next time you should be a little more explicit on why you disagree with me about Joey's motivations for having sex, rather than just leaving a snide, one sentence remark making light of it.
Oh, and let me guess, you are acting like the elder statesman here?
How the hell would he have lost his job if that line had been printed? I've read in plenty of interviews that actors do mainstream movies for the money and some independent stuff because that's what they really want to do, Halle Berry to name one. She is not getting fired from any of her movies, is she? Besides Joey would only be fired if the writers of Friends want him to be fired again. When he was fired the first time, it was because they needed a reason why he had to move in with Chandler again.
That's pretty much the *only* thing YOU do, every time somebody dares to say something you don't like. I really would like to see what happens when you disagree with Tennant. From ym personal experience I'd predict you wouldn't last a week before you'd get killfiled.
Please don't take my post as an attack towards you, since it is not. You are certainly right when you say that the end to the Joey&Rachel story we have seen so far is not enough for a storyline that had such a long build up, what annoys me though is how you go out of your way to find evidence how Joey&Rachel together is the only thing that makes the show worth watching and how you have a go at everyone here who says something you dislike.
I don't think Halle Berry has ever been quoted as saying, "Oh I don't watch soap operas. I mean, I actually have a life." to the readers of SOAP OPERA Digest. You know, that might fall him out of favor with a few people who might happen to watch his show, which was the whole point of the joke...
I know this is going to be shocking logic to you, but perhaps I haven't argued with Tennant because he has never felt the need to reply with some smart ass response making light of what I had to said. It ain't no coincedence there pal.
Are you even reading what I am writing? I think more likely you already have a preconceived idea of what you think I am going to say, and you don't even bother to read something in it's context. The last sentence in that paragraph above this is a perfect example of that, if you have even been reading the posts here you would realize your comments are way off.
And when someone is posting something with the intention of making light of what I had to say, I am going to take issue with that. That's just the wacky kind of guy I am...
Maybe I should have used the word "if" instead of "when" to get my point across... And what is it that makes you think everyone who disagrees with you is making light of your opinion?
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I was referring to your posts in general, such as the whole "ross and rachel bring disastrous ratings to the show" (or whatever it was called) thread you started and not this thread specifically.
Will you ever be able to reply like a normal person without this sacastic tone? I'm all for sarcasm, but there's such thing as overdoing it you know...
I don't think that, actually. You can check, there more than enough disagreements with my opinion from an R&R fan that I didn't take personally.
I just guess it's that majority mentality that feels that by their right they are allowed to mock the outlier opinions since they have the least likely chance of coming to fruition, yet when one of those outliers comes back with a reply, it's perceived at striking at the core that this show, and the people who talk about it, stand for.
Well...the suggestion of them did bring in rather awful ratings. I believe it was at least 3 or 4 million below season average with a NEW episode. (Usually the reruns are what are supposed to pull down the season average ratings, not brand spanking new episodes) And I don't think that it beating Survivor makes it a credible excuse anymore, as that show has clearly fallen off this year compared to last year. Friends was NEVER 3rd or worse on the night this season with a new episode until 818 aired. So the title and resulting article was more than accurate.
I'm sorry if the truth doesn't taste good to you, but that's not my problem.
Sarcasm is the one form of comedy that can never get old, unless you happen to be on the receiving end of it. Some of Matthew Perry's best episodes early on as Chandler had him cracking 20-30 sarcastic remarks in the span of a 22 minute episode, and they received great laughs every time.
Well, what was *accurate* is that the rating went down by several million.
That's a fact. Everything else is opinion and interpretation. "Atrocious
ratings" is also a matter of opinion; they were #4 for the week, and not
everybody would consider those to be atrocious ratings. That's like saying
"Bill Gates had an atrocious year. Trading in Microsoft shares is down and
he only made 25 million dollars instead of his usual 30." or "Oh, what a
terrible student! You got an A- instead of an A+ this week! Go to your
room, you are grounded!" Network executives generally expect that more
people are going to watch their sweeps stunts than their regular episodes;
otherwise, there would be no point in having sweeps stunts. That's why Joey
declares love in February, not March and the baby was due in May, not
sometime in the middle of July. 13 million and #4 is not atrocious ratings
for a filler episode. Bottom line: if the advertisers still want to give
the network big bucks to be allowed to put their commercials on during
Friends, the ratings are good. If the ratings remain at their present level
in May, your hypothesis will be on somewhat stronger ground, but Friends is
still a top five show and you are overstating the depths of its present
"failure". I am not surprised they don't get top ratings for episodes in
which nothing important is expected to happen.
Well, it isn't the truth. It's your opinion. Which is fine. We've all got 'em.
Some of Matthew Perry's best
Now, if they REALLY want monster ratings, they need to give Chandler his groove back. The dishrag married to Monica is rarely funny at all.
"abrahammy" wrote in message news:nmhu8.7044$[email]...
[clipped all the stuff we've all read]
I think Chandler has turned into a nicer guy, but in doing so he lost his wit. Do you suppose that psychiatrist date of Phoebe's was right, that Chandler's humor came from his feelings about his dysfunctional family unit? Now that he is comfortably married, he has no subconscious reason to be funny. So, unfortunately, he isn't.
Oh come on. You constantly come off as a smart ass with all your remarks to anyone who doesnt see things they way you do.
own
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So, your beloved Joey, who is in love with Rachel, sleeps with someone just like that and yet you still think that they might get together later on in the season. I totally agree with you that the writers screwed the whole J&R thing and did not like it at all but by making Joey sleep with someone for the heck of it do you think it would be right to see him in future episodes being in love with Rachel again and possibly getting together with her? The writers screwed his up by making Joey sleep with the interviewer. They would have to screw up again and pretend that it didnt happen in order for the to put J&R together if they intend to do so. The reason i made my original remark when you stated that Joey was forced to sleep with the interviewer was becasue you cant say that someone was forced to sleep with someone else. If you work for a company and your female boss wants to sleep with you and you dont want to, would you go ahead with it anyway and then claim that you were forced to sleep with her because if you hadnt you would have lost your job? Life is full of choices. You could quit. nobody forced you to sleep woth your boss. Nobody forced Joey to sleep with the interviewer. The writers just presented Joey like they used to present him all the previous years.
a
stuck
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picking a
Assuming that my one sentence remark was not enough for you to understand that i thought that the idea of someone being forced to have sex was silly, i still dont think that i deserve your sarcastic remarks. You do it to me everytime and from waht i have seen you do it to thers who type more than one sentence. You just seem as if you constantly want to pick a fight with someone who doesnt see things the way you do.
Well, according to another post of yours, what matters is not how old someone is but how old they act and you definitely act as if you are 12 years old.
You have loads of interesting things to say and contribute to the ng. why do you have to be so harsh on people so often? Why do you become so rude every time someone disagrees with you? I am hardly the first person you have treated like this and it's bad cause your posts are sometimes interesting to read but your attitude is unbearable quite often.
It seems like you are making a defense for your being a smart ass towards me for no reason by saying I did it to someone else previously. How does that make you look any better?
You're right. When Ross slept with Chloe, (which by the way a much, MUCH bigger deal had been made of), that was a clear sign by the writers that Ross had moved on.
Gimme a break. So when women in sexual harassment cases say in court that they were "forced" into a situation to have sex or otherwise lose their job, they should be sneered at since they could have just quit?
I don't know where you get the idea that people can just drop and pick up certain jobs, ESPECIALLY acting jobs, just like that. It took Joey so many years to recover from his first slipup that he may had not been able to recover a second time.
You seemed to take a light shot at me for no reason. You obviously could have been a lot nicer in saying why you disagreed with that, but you chose the lower road.
I guess if we are going to go by that standard, then I would have pegged you to be around 8 or 9.
I've said this many times, but as long as your posts don't carry a twinge of personal spite in them, then I have no problem discussing the show with you. It's obvious no one's mind is going to be changed in all this, so it's just better to say what your intrepretation of something is, rather than say how amused you are by something I said.
Well, no, Ross had not in any way moved on. Now, I'd say it was a clear sign from the writers that Ross was acting out his pain inappropriately, had extremely poor judgement, he'd hurt Rachel and he was about to get into very serious trouble - but he certainly wasn't over Rachel. Now, with Bonnie he had begun to move on. At any rate, these two scenarios are apples and oranges. Joey had never been Rachel's girlfriend and she had no claims on him. I think it's disappointing that they didn't use his story with Rachel as an avenue for personal growth, but what we really saw was Joey being Joey, as he had the right to do. It is the J&R fans, not Rachel, who has been harmed by this if anybody has. I do, however think that Joey has probably moved on. Whether or not this was a good artistic decision is a matter of debate, but unless we get a big surprise, he HAS moved on.
forced to
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I don't think this was a particularly good analogy. The reporter did not force Joey to do anything. He did, however, use his seductive powers to persuade her to NOT do something. He manipulated her, not the other way around. At any rate, I do not think that, in the real world, Joey would have lost his job over this if his character was popular, though the producer might have yelled at him.
Remember also, folks, that in another tag scene in this show's history Joey invited his friends to hit him over the head with a baseball bat because he had insurance - and they picked up their bats and headed towards him. We can take this stuff too seriously. The only point is understand writer's intent. If Joey does not end up having more romantic scenes with Rachel, then we can take this scene as an indication that he's over her, and some will be annoyed at the speed with which this happened. If their story pops up again, then Joey's just a guy who has sex a lot without any emotional investment, and this is a way for the writers to come up with cheap jokes.
Now, here's a controversy that will never be solved. Do we take what happened at complete face value or do we yell at the writers for writing something badly which makes no sense? At face value, Joey got a crush on Rachel which lasted about a month and evaporated almost as soon as she rejected him. If we criticize the writers, then Joey fell deeply and completely in love, and the dumb writers threw it away and pretended we wouldn't notice.
And yes, I know very well that we can do this a lot of places in Friends. Either Ross has always been a little hateful and unstable and he hid it from us for four years, (or the pain of his second divorce threw him into clinical depression) or the writers suddenly ran out of ways to make him funny without making him seem crazy and unsavory. Michael Curtis actually told us that he thought, deep down, Ross was not really a good person. I thought that was an artistic mistake at the time - and since he's not funny and effective as a jerk, I still think that. I also think it's weird that they clearly want him to be able to carry sympathetic stories at a moment's notice despite what they did to him. That's actually a corallary of the problem that has Paul so annoyed here.
Either Rachel's "love" for Ross at the end of season four was mostly a function of her not wanting him to marry Emily when she herself was still single, or they ended that with jarring callousness and poor writing.
In the end, I think the writers are just kind of arrogant. They think we are sheep and they pride themselves on the ability to manipulate millions of people at the drop of a hat. And they do. Year after year, they do. Survivor just moved its own finale to Sunday night so they won't have to try to compete with the birth of Ross and Rachel's baby. With the only main competition gone, there are going to be monster ratings on this one, whether each individual viewer really likes the R&R combo or not.
"abrahammy" wrote in message news:34hu8.7000$[email]...
Joey
he
pops
That's why I figured I wont post in this thread anymore after this. It's kind of really stupid (I include myself here) to argue over a joke that everybody considers lame and not funny.
I was making a joke, and thank you for proving my point with that one sentence of yours.
So is that why when newscasters or celebrities say something off-color, or commit some sort of crime, they are usually fired since the bigwigs don't want their name associated anymore with said person?
So what you are basically saying here is that anyone who recreationally watches "Friends" and is not invested in, or critical of, this show is not going to notice or really care that they have dropped one storyline just like that, and replaced it with another one?
That sounds like a little wishful thinking that others like yourself would try to downplay the relative impact the Joey/Rachel arc had on the show.
There has to be some sense of believability/closure to the storylines in order for anyone to buy them, fanatic or light viewer.
Claire, please don't post any spoiler information about the upcoming R&R episodes in this thread! Some people who are reading the review for 819 may not know about what happens to them in upcoming episodes.
Lot of hostility here. I didn't earn that this time.
not
Joey committed a crime? Actually, if we explore that, then Robert Downey Jr. sure got a lot more chances than Joey's getting.
on
Well, no, what I'm basically saying is that there are two ways to interpret any of these scenarios, and I *very carefully* and *very intentionally* included a scenario which bothered me - Rachel suddenly losing interest in Ross in season five - as a close parallel to this R&J thing which has bothered you. I am exploring an ongoing problem with the writing, and discussing ways to deal with it, and I went way out of my way to make sure I included multiple examples just so *you* wouldn't jump down my throat again. My conclusion, in the last paragraph, is that the writers are arrogant and they think us sheep.
They don't know R&R are having a baby? Look at what I wrote. I said R&R are having a baby and people are going to watch that whether they like R&R or not. You think the birth of their child isn't going involve interaction between Ross and Rachel of some kind? Now, BJ did, a little bit. However, take care... It is well known that many of us have read the spoilers. Even our emotional state can be, to some extent an inferential spoiler, even if all details are avoided.
"abrahammy" wrote in message news:erKu8.9982$[email]...
message
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interpret
My mistake. I actually included the Ross Going Crazy thing instead, since it was the #1 thing which upset me as much as this has upset you. Still, I took pains to point out that what they did to Joey has been done before, and what are we to make of it?
They could have given us some excerpts from Days of Our Lives, or his encounter with Brooke Shields ("My very own stalker"), or the movie he made with Marcel and Jean-Claude van Damme, or his misadventures
I don't know if i have to put the spoiler space but i do .. S P O I L E R
S P A C E
"Charles Blair" a �crit dans le message de news: bMkr8.36518$[email]...
can anyone fill me in?? Are you all people talking about the 819 Friends who hasn't already been aired as far as i can remember.. or something else ?? what's that clip show and where can i find it ?? thank you !!
Yup, it was a boring and inferior episode, IMO. A few of the clips were individually amusing, but, as you say, they felt thrown together, and overall the effect was dull.
It's predictable that you would feel this way, and I can understand why it bothered you. It could be that the writers are hitting us over the head with the idea that R&J are over. If that's true, it was graceless way to do so.
However, another way to look at this is that the clips we were shown all reflect Joey hitting on someone for purely sexual reasons. His feelings for Rachel clearly ran deeper than that and could be seen as being in a different category ... thus, not belonging with the others. In fact, the clips all came from humorous situations, and, given the way it (seems to have) ended, there wasn't anything funny about Joey's love for Rachel -- at least not funny in the same way that his pretending a pile of cardboard boxes is a Porsche is funny. How exactly would you fit a scene of Joey feeling unrequited love for Rachel together with slapstick-y scenes of Joey being horny? That's one way to look at it, anyway ...
I actually thought they included quite a few funny clips, not to mention the extended version of Joey's "Freud!" play in 106 TOW The Butt. The editing was quite good IMO, but there were some clips I wish they could have omitted (such as Janine in 607 TOW Phoebe Runs, and Phoebe and Joey and the birds in 512 TOW Chandler's Work Laugh).
They also forgot everything about e.g. Angela Delvecchio (that he dated for three years) and Kate in 319-322. The fact that they didn't even mention Rachel was the worst part, though. It was ridiculous and showed that they obviously don't believe that the viewers are capable of remembering anything that happened one month ago. If this is indeed the end of the JnR-story, it is safe to say that the writers failed miserably when they were going to finish it. If they had given us a proper closure scene, I think more people would have started rooting for RnR again. As of now, I think that I would have been able to enjoy both RnR in 818 TO In Massapequa and this episode if it hadn't been for that question that keeps going through my mind whether the JnR story really is over. Shouldn't they follow the rule about finishing one thing before they start with the next?
And the fact that Rachel started joking around about Joey being the father of her baby was incredibly insensitive.
The last three episodes have been disappointing IMO, so hopefully the last five episodes will be better. But a small closure-scene would have made so much sense for the season as a whole.
It really looks like they won't mention it anymore, but that only makes the way they're handling the aftermath of his revelation even more pathetic. Even though this is a sitcom, it's not logical to act as if nothing has happened when Joey told Rachel and Ross about his feelings a couple of weeks ago.
Indeed, but what shall we do? Hope for extended DVD versions, write [hate] mail to BKC/WB/NBC, found a "Put Realism in TV Sitcoms" party or just accept that it was poorly written?
Christoph, who thinks 818 was okay when watched without the context
Why do you guys feel like making fun of people who didn't enjoy the episodes as much as you did? I'm not a R&R fan at all and I thought their story was great in 818 but the episode as a whole was not up to the mark. I didn't like it very much when I saw it first. On second viewing, I admit it got better but Monica's speech got worse if thats possible.
I doubt that important scenes concerning the Joey/Rachel would end up on the cutting floor while we had to see trash like that speech and bouncy buffet plates?
First two options would be pointless and the third one is pretty much a given. All the same, I'm terribly disappointed with the way they've handled it. Bury their heads in the sand and pretending that they never wrote that story... tsk tsk.
Hello Ross! :) What you was so sarcastic, I was a bit miffed.
Even in your fanfic, you had Joey talk to Chandler about Rachel even if it was really corny. No offense, I just felt you had gotten Joey all wrong :) But 818 and 819 makes me wonder if the writers see Joey the way you do. It's really a shame that they develop a character so much and send him back in time as if nothing ever happened.
That's just me. Sometimes. (There's a "said" or "wrote" missing, I presume.)
I know. It was just easier to have him out of the way, so I send him Chandler, but couldn't think of any good dialogues between them at all. I'd never just stop mentioning his feelings until a real closure. Maybe I should reconsider my next fanfic's (TOW Ross' Wallet) Joey, who dates a lot of women -- more than ever before -- just to find a replacement for Rachel as soon as possible. Serendipitously^WFortunately that part has not been written yet.
Well, I liked Dumb and Food Joey better than Unrequited Love Joey, but it wasn't my decision to make him that person. Unlike me the people who chose so were in charge of continuing it properly and failed miserably.
I'm with Priya on this one. I'm not a RnR fan, and their story in 818 was the highlight of the episode, in fact, it was amusing, and the last scene between the two was good; but that doesn't mean that I will think of 818 as a good episode. It wasn't good, and it wasn't funny enough IMO. In addition to that, they drop the JnR storyline like a hot potato, and it is as if it never even happened. At this point one can watch 801-811, skip 812-817, and then go back to watching 818-824, and still get the main points of this season. I don't think we're asking for much when we just want a small scene that shows us that it's not completely forgotten, but Joey is dealing with it and moving on. I don't buy the whole "if we don't mention it, the audience will forget it" issue, so I'd rather have for instance Chandler asking Joey how he's coping with it, and Joey being as honest as he can.
This is where we disagree. One reason why I think Friends is better than other sitcoms is *because of* the context. The series always has some ongoing storylines that make us excited about next week's show. Season 8 has had two great storylines (Rachel's pregnancy, and Joey falling in love with her), and while the first one is still going strong, the other one has now disappeared completely. It makes no sense to me, and it ruins the idea of context and character development.
Yeah, me personal expected (or feared?) to see a Joey dating several women per day to find another one he could love as soon as possible. But _we_ can't change what _they_ did, that's all I said. The only possibility I can see is that there'll be some edition to 817 or 818 for reruns and/or DVD. And that's a very tiny one.
We don't disagree here neither IMHO. Imagine 818 would have been aired as 812, we hopefully might agree that it was a fair episode then, not a good or even great one, but okay.
Oh, must you act like a prick towards anyone who doesn't praise every R&R episode on this show?
818 was bad, and the ratings reflected it.
It is not even realistic in the fantasy sitcom world to have relationships picked up and dropped like this, and the only reason they would do something like this is out of necessity that the 8th season might have been the last.
Do I really have to repeat it once again or didn't you read my replies to Marita and Priya yet? Well, here I go: The point that they just dropped the whole Joey plot is one of the worst things ever happened to Friends. But besides that, the episode was quite okay *IMHO*, no soap like drama though.
Yes, it isn't. I think this is one of the very few times that almost everyone in ATF agrees. I'm still waitning for Tennant to reach 818 and comment it.
If that's their excuse, it's a really weak one. When was season 9 confirmed - early February? And it didn't come out of the blue, they said before the talks it's about 50:50. That means they were able to plan two story arcs for R+R+J and should have done so. We're now seeing the [not well written] arc one would have expected if the show definitely ended this May, but they should of course have chosen the alternative one, which they obviously didn't plan out at all. The other reason I could imagine is that someone important was uncomfortable with the idea of Rachel as a single mom, or thought the audience would be, so she needs to be bound to Ross, the father, again. That reason isn't any better though, in addition BKC already made a sitcom with a single mom - Jesse.
"Christoph P�per" wrote in message news:a8rmjl$1j0e$[email]...
There is a problem with this analysis, though. People who tuned in wouldn't know the episode was bad until after they had seen it. People couldn't have decided not to watch the episode because it was bad. I still think the holiday weekend was a major player in this situation, as well as the fact that everybody knew it was basically just going to be filler between significant storylines.
That's what I read in your post as well. The episode would have seemed fine if we weren't all sitting around wondering why Joey didn't react when Ross started announcing that Rachel was his wife. I do think that what they did in 819 last week was worse. Rachel suggesting Joey was the baby's father was just gross
Yes, and they explained that she was a single mom because her ex-husband was a complete turd. Presumably Ross should come off better than that.
. Don't you actually have to watch the episode to determine if it was good or not? I definitely do not think that the ratings had anything to do with how bad that episode was.
a.) A TV critic for a newspaper writes a bad review for the show on the day the show airs
b.) People saw the NBC promo, and either didn't care to see Alec Baldwin nor the suggestion of R&R tension
c.) The viewer bleedage was a result from poor shows leading up to it, as typically shows have streaks of good and bad episodes. And yes, even being a J&R fan, I thought the supposed "payoff" of the storyline in 816/817 was very poorly written.
And seeing as how 818 and 819 were probably even worse than 816/817, can't you imagine why NBC is desperately running promos of Friends in May right now? Not only that, but they are basically giving away a rather big plot development in that promo, hoping that viewers will return.
But I'm not betting on that happening until the season finale...
"Amy and Dave" wrote in message news:7y6s8.24135$[email]...
I actually didn't pick up on that the first time I watched as the phone rang just then. (I didn't answer it of course.) But I watched the episode again this weekend and thought, "My God. How rude!" I drop my rating from C to D on that one bit alone. I doubt I'll watch the episode again for fear of dropping another level. The more I think about it, the more I dislike it.
Still, I'm optimistic about the remainder of episodes this season. Time will tell.
I thought it was very rude and insensitive...but I think the writers thought we wouldn't take it so seriously since we tune in for comedy more than drama...well..most of the time. But then again...it wasn't that funny.
Yeah, this episode was horrible. To think that I went thru the pain of downloading it (took me from Friday afternoon till close to midnight on Saturday, because I was queued most of the time and only have a 64k connection) really bugs me. I hate clip shows even when I watch them on TV, because they don't do anything, it's just a bunch of old clips thrown together because the actors want to have a week off :-(
I never enjoyed the 8. season as much as you did, not because of J&R but because it wasn't as funny as Friends can easily be. This year the show really felt like a movie cut into 20 minute bits, i.e. one big continuing story arc and hardly any development outside of that story arc. Now, since they've dropped this story arc, or at least make it look like they did, one might wonder why they bothered coming up with it in the first place. But I have to agree with Claire (oh, btw, if you're reading this, would you rather be called abrahammy or Claire?) this is pretty much the same they did in early S5, when Rachel lost her undying love for Ross again, after it had suddenly re-surfaced at the end of S4.
I think Rachel's behaviour in this episode was kind of sick, suggesting that Joey was the father of her baby, especially when she just broke his heart a few weeks ago. But then again, I had to think of Tennant's upcoming review of this episode and wondered if it would feature a comment like this: "Was Rachel's comment, that Joey might be the father of her baby, a big sign to all the J&R fans out there to not give up yet?" Well I admit that sounds nothing like him, but he has a tendency to see this kind of things as foreshadowing (and I dont mean this as an insult) :-)