Review
Notes about this guide
The guide for each episode is split into seven sections
101 - TOW Monica Gets a Roomate – The title of each episode is written in this style to be a shorthand to make things easy to follow. So here 101 means season one, episode one. Just as 317 would mean season three episode seventeen. The TOW is shorthand for “The One With.” Each episode of Friends is titled in this way, with a few variations such as “The One With” or “The One After.”
Synopsis: Is a brief summary of the show. I assume that those reading this guide will have a healthy knowledge of Friends and its episodes. If you require a detailed summary of the episode or other information I highly recommend TV.com and its resources.
The Good: Will be my analysis of what worked in the episode. This will state where story’s, characters and jokes were interesting, believable, consistent and funny.
The Bad: Obviously will state what didn’t work about the episode and why.
Best Line: I choose the line which I thought was the funniest from the episode. This is not necessarily the best joke though as some jokes are visual or require too much context to write here.
Best Friend: As Friends tries to equally feature six characters, I decided to choose which character I felt was the best in the episode. By best I mean the one whose performance stood out, either dramatically or comedically, the most. Sometimes a character will perform what I consider bad writing really well, while others will perform good writing badly. So the “Best Friend” is really an award for acting.
/100 To give a score out of a hundred may seem too much for some. In designing this guide I was keen to be able to rank the episodes in order of quality. Anything less than a hundred gave me too little room for manoeuvre. The way I calculate the score is not a mathematical formula. But it is far from an arbitrary figure. I do weigh the quality of story, characters and jokes as well as how the episode compares to others in order to reach a score. The score is of course a highly subjective figure and unlike words does not have caveats and qualifications surrounding it. I would warn you against placing too much emphasis on the score I have given. It is more shorthand to help gauge an episode’s effectiveness.
No real names
While writing the guide I was concerned with being brief and not writing long reviews which people would lose interest in. I therefore took the decision not to include the six Friends real names in any reviews. I feel I am justified on two fronts with this.
The first is that the six actors are very famous and their names appear very clearly on the opening credits of the show. So I hope you will be in no doubt about who I am writing about.
The second reason is the problem of who to give credit to. In the guide I have often written words to the effect of Ross is excellent in this scene. It is cumbersome to switch from writing about Ross’ character to suddenly praise David Schwimmer for his performance. But more than cumbersome it is inaccurate. Behind his acting is the director who may well have told him what to emphasise or express. Behind him is a team of writers who scripted the line and behind them the executive producers who structured the overall direction of the show.
So I hope you will understand that when I write “Ross is excellent” you will naturally give first credit to David Schwimmer and then a mental nod to all those who went into making that performance so good.
What is cheap?
I also found myself using the word cheap, in the context of jokes, a lot during the guide. The definition which best describes what I mean by cheap is “of decreased value.” In the context of comedy I apply this to jokes which require less effort or are in some way appealing to the lowest (or cheapest) common denominator.
Practically I mean that there are jokes which we all know from childhood will illicit a reaction in others. These include bodily functions, insulting people’s appearance and someone falling over or being vulgar or rude. When jokes like this are written I often refer to them as cheap. Meaning that joke has less value to me than a joke which relies on more nuance.
However if you consider these jokes to be really funny then by all means construe cheap as a compliment!
I may also extend the meaning of the word cheap to cover jokes where I feel the writers have made a joke which is too obvious or too demeaning to deserve credit. Again I mean I consider them to have diminished value.
Finally
I would like to say that I have the utmost respect for those who made Friends. I would not hope to suggest through this guide that in any way I could have done a better job than any of those who participated in its production.
My criticisms of the show are made in the spirit of making an enjoyable episode guide. They also reflect my own prejudices, opinions and emotions and are not an attempt to hurt the feelings of anyone involved.
I would like to thank everyone involved with the show for giving us ten seasons of entertainment which we can enjoy forever
