I never watched Friends in its heyday. Heck, I was only 8 when it first aired. But I caught a variety of syndicated episodes here and there. It wasn't until my senior year of college, when I borrowed all ten seasons from a friend (thanks Kranz!) and watched all 200+ episodes in sequence.
Just recently, I began re-watching the series. Once again, in order. Only this time, I'm watching a couple episodes a day. (I think I was averaging about a half-season a day back in college.) Here's a few thoughts from my second tour with Friends.
It truly is a great series.
...But the first few seasons are definitely better than the later years. I just finished Season 2. Possibly the best of all of them. (Although I remember 4 being great too.)
There's a lot of jokes I had forgotten about. I laughed really hard sometimes because I didn't see a joke coming.
Something else that makes me laugh is the technology. Yes, we're used to seeing Leave it to Beaver reruns that look ancient. But I still think of Friends as a modern show. Everyone has pagers instead of cell phones. Caller ID was something that very few people had. Chandler was bragging about his new laptop that had a 500 Megabyte hard drive!
And the thought that really stuck with me -- These characters (and the actors for that matter) were in their mid-twenties when the show started. I am in my mid-twenties! Granted, living in Southwest Missouri is nothing like living in New York, but it's pretty cool to draw the comparison 17 years later.
I can't wait to watch more episodes.!
Love this, Rye! I've rewatched the full series 3 times now and it just never gets old. I still cry at the last episode and I probably always will!
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"Friends" was the big show catching on while I was at KU in the early 90s. I remember being at my waitress job, at a bar & grill (what was the name of that place .... Apple Something??), at the other girls were talking about the show. It definitely has a stamp on my mid- to late college years, and will always capture that part of my life for me. The 1990s were cool. I didn't have email until 1998 or so, and I didn 't go to college having a computer or knowing how to use one. Weird.
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