Well, ABC has no problem airing a sit-com at 10 o’clock at night and including all the innuendo and sexual references we’re only seeing nowadays on FX, Comedy Central, and IFC.
Are you sold? My recap is less about recalling each scene and the best lines, but for now this is a love letter to a great new sitcom and a petition to you, the potential viewing public, to watch it, talk about it, Facebook and Tweet about it, and make sure that the networks understand, hey, we don’t want Leno at 1o p.m., we won’t miss Two and a Half Men, and it’s about time shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, and South Park get onto network television.
First of all, I liked this show. I thought there was some nice chemistry right off the bat. That being said, I don’t think you’re right about your assessment of Friends. Joey had all kinds of hookups, and even though we didn’t see semi-nudity on a regular basis, we did often meet the girls and hear about his exploits. And as goofy as Chandler was, he never really read as “gay” to me, other than the way he and Joey were attached to each other, which ended up being quite endearing. At least to me.
There was always issue taken with the fact that NBC did not put any people of color into the cast, save for the fact that Monica, Ross and Rachel were Jewish and Ross had an Asian girlfriend for a while. (Making Ross black might be tough to explain since his sister and parents were both white.) Bottom line is that the show was a glossy, sitcom version of Manhattan where people’s apartments were absurdly large and life was grand, except for when it wasn’t. If you want to debate me on the merits of Friends, we can do that. And maybe I love it because of the fact that it aired from my senior year of college to right after I had my first child, but I will stand by it. Yes, even through the rough patches; those will happen in 10 years. Still one of my faves of all time.
Maybe I’ll start DVR’ing Friends and see if I see anything redeeming. You make it sound like it was a real show with real entertainment value. Blech.