Worst lines ever

[Seb Patrick]

For reasons too tedious to go into, I decided to put myself through watching “Only The Good” yesterday.

“Talia! The nanobots must have resurrected you, too!”

Topic

[Carlito]

Most jarringly of all, the male cast all had obviously fake tans that stopped at their hairlines.

[Carlito]

Especially Chandler, who from around series 6 onwards looked consistently orange.

[Tyrell Corporation]

‘Twas hilarious for college flashback scenes, watching a bloated Matthew Perry play his 19 year old self.

[Carlito]

On the one hand, feel bad for Matthew Perry and his ‘issues’. On the other… makes it very easy to tell which series you’re watching when you’re channel surfing.

“Which series is this?”
“How’s Chandler looking?”
“Boney, deathly pale, with a goatee?”
“Series 3!”

“What about this one?”
“How’s he looking?”
“Well he put on about 4st and grew his hair long between the ‘Previously on Friends’ recap and the first scene of this episode which supposedly takes place just seconds later.”
“Ah! Series 6!”

And so on…

[Tyrell Corporation]

“What series?”

“The colours are a little off and pictures smears when the camera pans”

“Oh… all of them”

[peas_and_corn]

>IMO this is utter drivel.

While you cannot convince me to like it, I would like to know, what is it about Friends for you ‘works’ and what doesn’t? Personally I liked it early on and just grew frustrated with some of the elements (esp the Ross/Rachael stuff), and after that didn’t understand what people saw in the show.

If what I wrote sound sarcastic I don’t mean it to be, I genuinely am interested to hear your perspective on the show.

[JamesTC]

>OK 5% is an exaggeration, but take away Jennifer Aniston and the will-they-won?t-they-well-they-did-but-then-they-were-on-a-break-and-that-bint-from-Cold-Feet etc etc Ross/Rachel fiasco and that?s the end of MOST of the interest in the show.

It will end some intrest but it will still be a bloody good show, Chandler and Joey are the funniest in the show anyway. I always thought they did better Comedy than Drama, thought? No, they do better Comedy than Drama, fact!

>Friends was always sold with the good-looking cast angle, then the whole Rachel hairstyle thing, coupled with the fact that she was fucking Brad Pitt, helped propel that into the stratosphere. Obviously that?s not why EVERYONE who watched it watched it, but it?s what made it such a massive show.

The people who watched it for the reason of her fucking brad Pitt are rather odd, especially since Brad Pitt was only in 1 episode of the show (though I did love what they done with him in that, made his the co-founder of the “I hate Rachel” club with Ross).

[Andrew]

> While you cannot convince me to like it, I would like to know, what is it about Friends for you ?works? and what doesn?t?

It’s an extremely well-built show. I’m not here defending it as the best thing ever written, and I’m not saying it didn’t have peaks and troughs, it’s just this ‘5%’ thing is total garbage.

But hey, just from a writing point of view the thing screams class. I’m not just talking about the gags – though the hit rate was phenomenally good – but the strength of the character work. The pilot is terrific, you know who the all are SO quickly. And the back-stories are incredibly intricate. Even before the retro-fitting of some stuff (Chandler causing Monica to lose weight), there was a lot of stuff on paper in the writers’ room. That kind of planning I find massively admirable – not because they stuck to it, but because it worked, it was useful. They got laughs and character beats out of it.

Yes it’s ‘aspirational’ rather than ‘identifiable’, to the point of being patently unrealistic. That’s often been the American sitcom way, and in itself is not automatically ‘bad’. But the over-paid-ness and attractiveness of the cast shouldn’t put anyone off the fact that they are, for the most part, incredibly gifted performers. Lisa Kudrow can take a line and find a reading of it that you’d never expect, yet totally suits the character AND still makes the joke work.

The success of the Ross/Rachel thing in series one is undeniable. (In fact series one as a whole I think represents such a ridiculous level of high-quality that it should be taught in schools.) The whole may have become too twisted and over-sustained as it went along, but The One With The Prom Video is proof that it worked. As many others probably felt, though, I was far more taken with the Chandler/Monica story as it developed.

Far from the histrionics of will they/won’t they, not saddled with a need to fit a genre mould, where Ross and Rachel were a 20-something wish-fulfilment, Chandler and Monica were a 30-something relationship that seemed organic, credible, and relatable. The show succeeded in having a third of its cast lose all ‘dating’ storylines in favour of a (TV version of an) adult relationship. That it was bold is obvious; that it worked is more surprising. And that, again, all comes down to well-built characters.

I see a stack of scripts every year – top names, commissioned shows – and I’ve never, ever had anything come through that sings the way the Friends pilot sings.

[Tyrell Corporation]

What about ‘The End – Original Assembly’?

Hmm, I’m going to watch that tonight for the 21st anniversary.

[John Hoare]

Hmm, I?m going to watch that tonight for the 21st anniversary.

Now that is a BLOODY good idea. I shall do likewise.

[Mr Flibble]

I’m going to find Doug’s number, call him, ask him what pub he went into to get people for the recording of The End* and go and have a drink there while watching it on my iPod.

*If anyone knows, feel free to save me the trouble.

[Tyrell Corporation]

The Aigburth Arms.

[Mr Flibble]

They went 40 miles to find an audience? They really were desperate.

[Tyrell Corporation]

Doug could only find a Liverpool supporters bus.

[John Hoare]

Back to Friends for a moment – it’s obvious, but it’s still interesting how the retooled the character of Joey in that first season. He’s the only one that they hadn’t quite got right from the start.

[James]

Joey, tool, resist….

[Tyrell Corporation]

Joey was the only likeable character from the beginning.

Back To Friends – The Tw… er, Three part finale.

[si]

Friends is one of those shows that I will sit and watch AND LAUGH AT if it’s on.

Yes, it’s talked up, and the american audiences are annoying as hell, but it can be v. funny.

[pfm]

> there was a lot of stuff on paper in the writers? room. That kind of planning I find massively admirable – not because they stuck to it, but because it worked, it was useful.

If only they had managed this on Galactica. They’ve basically just rewritten the show’s entire mythology, fucked over characters by either killing them, making them act totally out of character, or bizarrely not giving them screentime (Baltar) etc. all because Ronald D Moore and the others obviously just shit themselves when they realised they had around 7 episodes to wrap up this whole thing and they DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! Not that it isn’t still brilliant or anything…

[Jo]

>worst line ever ? any line in friends

>Friends is shit, people are shit for liking it

Fuck off.
You may as well have said ‘Ah! I don’t like this really popular show which ran for 10 whole seasons and I’m going to say it was shit. HA! Didn’t expect me to have that opinion did you?’

Personally I love Friends, to me it’s on a par with Red Dwarf – this is mainly for personal reasons I have a small group of really close friends and it it wasn’t for the show we’d never have met. Aside from this it’s a feel-good show, it’s well written, not always consistent but overall it’s great. If I ever want to put something on to cheer me up I just grab one of the DVDs and watch, Never fails.

>By seasons seven and eight, they were playing themselves in their 30?s still trying to pretend they were in their 20?s.

Um, no. They were getting married, settling down, having children, moving into family homes. They still had the same essential personalities and similar characteristics as when the show first started, but by the end they had all grown up and matured and if you don’t think so then you weren’t paying attention.

[Tyrell Corporation]

I’m all for the maturing of characters and their relationships with one another…

But when I can sit through an entire season of Friends without so much as chuckling, then it’s dead to me.

A show that lasts for ten seasons does not make a good show, that’s like saying a Michael Bolton album is better than a Pink Floyd album because it sold more.

I’ll say it again, with no fear, Friends is fucking crap.

[si]

Woah there.

[JamesTC]

>But when I can sit through an entire season of Friends without so much as chuckling, then it?s dead to me.

Why did you sit through 22 episodes if you didn’t like it?

[si]

Friends is one of those shows that, even though you?ve seen them all before, you sit and watch it and have a chuckle.

Like The Simpsons.

[Seb Patrick]

>Why did you sit through 22 episodes if you didn?t like it?

I’ve got to wonder this, as well. Two or three episodes, maybe. Four, five, six, even. But twenty-two? An entire season? What, did you just REALLY have a thing for Jennifer Aniston, or something?

[Tyrell Corporation]

Oh you know what I meant, episodes that I’ve seen from the later seasons are absolutely cringeworthy.

[Pete Part Three]

It’s better than Red Dwarf VIII.

[Tyrell Corporation]

I like Series VIII.

[JamesTC]

>Oh you know what I meant, episodes that I?ve seen from the later seasons are absolutely cringeworthy.

So you like ones from previous seasons?

[Pete Part Three]

Oh, I see.

I?ll say it again, with no fear (?), Red Dwarf VIII is fucking crap.

[JamesTC]

>Red Dwarf VIII is cucking frap

I fixed it for you!

[Tyrell Corporation]

I adore the first two seasons, but it immediately went downhill from there.

Once Ross and Rachel had got together, it was inevitable that the rest of the characters would swirl around in increasingly tired storylines.

Don’t even start me about Chandler and Monica.

Can we talk about something else now?

[JamesTC]

One comment –
>It?s sad to see that Friends made it past three episodes. It became almost incestual when they all started fucking and having babies together.

Another comment –
>I adore the first two seasons

[Tyrell Corporation]

Yes, I adore the first two seasons but looking back, I wish it had been halted in its tracks given how macabre and utterly unfunny the later seasons were.

[Jonathan Capps]

I find Friends to be like popcorn. I wouldn’t say I was a big fan of the show (I used to poo-poo it actively), but I feel compelled to watch it whenever it’s on E4 (every other hour, then) as it warms me. Good, gentle humour, satisfying storylines and well drawn characters. I’ll take that any day.

[Anonymous]

“Arrested Development had 53 episodes and it was NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH.”

I want your babies. Most under-rated show ever!

Friends? Hmmmm… The only thing I’ll say about Friends is I’ll happily watch it if nothing better is on and even laugh once in a while, but I’ll never own it on DVD.

Now the correct order you’ve all been waiting for:

V > II > III & IV (difficult to split) > I > VI > VII > VIII

[Mr Flibble]

How is that like popcorn? You feel compelled to buy it every time you go to the cinema do you mean? (Takes note)

[si]

>III & IV (difficult to split)

Three and a half.

[Jonathan Capps]

> How is that like popcorn? You feel compelled to buy it every time you go to the cinema do you mean? (Takes note)

I throw knobs of butter at the TV when it’s on.

[Anonymous]

“Three and a half”

Assuming of course we’re not dealing with five-dimensional objects in a basic Euclidean geometric universe and given the essential premise that all geo-mathematics is based on the hideously limiting notion that one plus one equals two…

[si]

Smart arse.

[Mr Flibble]

I throw knobs of butter at the TV when it?s on.

Ha ha, knobs.

Also: you’ll be lucky to find butter in a cinema these days. Yellow Vegetable Oil, maybe.

[peas_and_corn]

I bought a coke at the cinema- it cost me $4, but it was HUGE- must have had like, 4c worth of postmix in there.

[Carlito]

I bought a popcorn, a drink and a bag of sweets at the cinema, and I was quite embarrassed. I told the cashier “sorry, I’ve only got a ?50 note”.

He said, “well you better put the sweets back then hadn’t you?”

Fucking liberty.

[ChrisM]

I used to buy popcorn before entering the cinema (you know the butterkist toffee kind?) Partly due to prices. (I do like the popcorn with sugar they do in the cinema though.)

I brought some along with a girl once and she told me it wasn’t allowed (cos they want you to buy their stuff.) Obviously they’d prefer you to buy their stuff, but I didn’t think there was a rule against bringing in other stuff. Not that I care that much. It’s not that they go checking everyone, is it?

[Seb Patrick]

I bought a popcorn, a drink and a bag of sweets at the cinema, and I was quite embarrassed. I told the cashier ?sorry, I?ve only got a ?50 note?.

He said, ?well you better put the sweets back then hadn?t you??

I lolled.

[Tyrell Corporation]

I was gave a written warning when I not only let in punters with their own pop and sweets, but actively discouraged them from buying it at the stall and pointed them at the supermarket nearby.

The supervisors all had that weary look on their faces, knowing there was another bloody pseudo-socialist amongst the ranks.

[Mr Flibble]

I brought some along with a girl once and she told me it wasn?t allowed (cos they want you to buy their stuff.) Obviously they?d prefer you to buy their stuff, but I didn?t think there was a rule against bringing in other stuff. Not that I care that much. It?s not that they go checking everyone, is it?

Vue used to do that lots. Cineworld and ODEON don’t have any rules against it, but it used to be in Vue’s terms of admission IIRC.

[Phil]

Last time I went to a film I was with a girl who smuggled tacos in her sleeves.

She has much to teach me.

[Seb Patrick]

Smuggling peanuts is quite popular, I hear.

[Author]

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