As you may have heard, Friends is ending its 10-season run tonight. That's right, all of those NBC promos we've been seeing every thirty minutes for the past eight months were not a clever April Fool's Day joke. So since the series is ending, I thought it proper to take a look back at the history of Friends. 

After ditching several other, less simple names, Friends premiered back in 1994 as a new NBC show about six friends in their mid-twenties, striking out in the big city. Since then it has attracted a great deal of weekly viewers, making it one of the most popular television series ever made. And those fans love their Friends, perhaps a little a too much. Don't get me wrong, Friends is... well was, a great show with solid acting and writing. But it was certainly never the best show on television as their viewers, and the executives of NBC, may lead you to believe. 

Look at it like this; Friends premiered and peaked in the mid to late 90's where, if you give an unbiased look at television at the time, it seems left far behind in the wake of its contemporaries. Friends was a great show in a time of great shows.

Seinfeld, like Friends, took place in New York City and featured an oddball group of friends trying to live out their everyday lives. But Seinfeld had far better characters. Whereas the friends on Friends gave each other comfort and support resulting in the group, eventually, leading a near picture-perfect existence, the Seinfeld characters made each other miserable and were the root cause of all of their failings. 

At the same time as Friends, The Simpsons was entering it's golden age with soon-to-be-legendary writers. An obvious analogy is that, while Carthage was a grand and powerful empire, it could never compete with the Romans. Frasier was also better written than Friends, and Kelsey Grammar could out-act David Schwimmer any day of the week. Unlike the Friends, Dr. Frasier Crane never tried to force viewers to love him; quite the opposite actually. Where the Friends relied on their 'hip' clothes and tacky plots to get into viewers' hearts, the central character of Frasier was a pretentious, blue-blooded jerk. And that's why people loved him. 

While Friends had some good writers that occasionally could mix comedy and drama successfully, they were never quite on par with, say, The X-Files, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nor did they ever really capture the mood of a generation like Beavis and Butthead did with Gen-X slackers. By definition the Friends were generic, upper-middle class white cosmopolitans who were scripted to appeal equally to high school cheerleaders and 40 year old Ad Executives, and they failed to offend, and subsequently connect with, anyone in a complete manner.

Friends was never as clever as Frasier, as funny as The Simpsons, as cultishly meaningful as The X-Files or on the level of brilliance that Seinfeld attained. But that doesn't matter to the millions tuning in tonight; for them Friends was a great show. So what if it wasn't quite on par with a handful of it's contemporaries? The Kinks were still a great band right? 

What made Friends work, and concurrently was the show's biggest drawback, was the cast of six characters that viewers grew to love. Yes, the constant flashback episodes have basically destroyed some of the funniest moments in the series and yes, the episode titles are neither witty nor amusing, but in the end Friends was a great show, and in ten years when the re-runs flicker across the screen on Nick-at-Nite, right after Seinfeld but somehow 30 minutes before Frasier, it will just serve as a reminder of how good and enduring the show was and just how bad that stupid Joey spin-off was doomed to be. 

:: Some of Our Best Friends ::
The best and worst Friends episodes.

The Ten Best Episodes

10. The One at the Beach (1997)
Phoebe isn't usually the center of the show's storylines, but here she finally gets her day. The group travels to a beach house with Phoebe, who is trying to learn more about her father from an old family friend who happens to also be named Phoebe. Rachel meets Ross's new girlfriend and convinces her to shave off all of her hair, much to Ross' dismay. Phoebe begins to grow skeptical of the other Phoebe, concluding that the old family friend knows more than she is willing to say. By the end of the episode, Phoebe finally discovers the true identity of her birth mother while the rest of the Friends pass the time playing "strip Happy Days game".


9. The One With the List (1995)
Ross must choose between Julie and Rachel and decides to enlist the help of Joey and Chandler. Using Chandler's new laptop computer, Ross makes a list of Julie and Rachel's negative qualities. Of course Rachel finds out, Ross begs her for forgiveness and Chandler enjoys of his most funny episodes. Always willing to stretch a great moment, the writers make viewers wait until the next episode to see if Rachel will forgive Ross. Sub Plot: Monica tries to sell a new Thanksgiving day food called Mockolate. 


8. The One With the Football (1996)
We all know that Monica is at her comedic peak when she is being a compulsive cleaner or, in this case, is being competitive. In this classic episode, the Friends square off against each other at a Thanksgiving Day game of American football in which Ross and Monica try to lead their respective teams to victory while Joey and Chandler compete for the attentions of an attractive Dutch woman. 


7. The One Where Underdog Gets Away (1994)
In another late November classic, Monica attempts to make her first Thanksgiving dinner with her Friends as perfect as possible, but the festivities are interrupted when the Underdog balloon escapes the Macy's Parade handlers, sending all the Friends flocking to the apartment rooftop to watch. This episode is notable for Joey getting his first job as a model - as a poster boy for venereal disease. Joey spends the episode trying to pick up women who invariably all run away once they see his face on the VD poster as The Police's "Don't Stand so Close to Me" plays overhead. This episode also received an Emmy nomination for writing (Jeff Greenstein and Jeff Strauss). 


6. The One With Ross's Sandwich (1998)
A co-worker angers When Ross eats his sandwich. Ross turns to Phoebe for advice on the matter, which results in Ross' co-workers thinking that he's insane. While that's amusing, the real comedy stems from Monica and Chandler's secret relationship that Joey must keep, well, secret. This triggers some the funniest and best written moments in the show's history as Joey is forced to explain strange occurrences caused by Monica and Chandler's relationship, delivering lines like "I'm Joey, I'm disgusting." Very amusing and, coincidentally, the most recent episode on my list. 


5. The One With the Blackout (1994)
Back in the early days of Friends, before Ross and Rachel started dating, before Chandler and Monica got married and before the writers started trying to remake Joey into a sympathetic and mature character, there was The Blackout. All the power in NYC went out and all of the Friends are forced to stay in Monica's apartment. That is, all the Friends except Chandler, who is trapped in a subway station with Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre. Oh, horrors! If anything, this episode is great for the excellent chemistry the cast has developed with one another and also the now well-refined characters. 


4. The One With the Baby on the Bus (1995)
If you have yet to understand why Friends mysteriously started to lose it's touch after Chandler and Joey stopped living together, look no further than this classic episode in which the duo baby-sit Ross' son Ben and accidentally leave him on a city bus while trying to (what else) pick-up girls. You also get to see an enraged Phoebe compete with a professional singer after Gunther gives the intrusive pro Phoebe's singing gig at the Central Perk. As an added bonus, you also get one of the most definitive Chandler quotes, in which Joey says "Heads should be ducks because ducks have heads," to which Chandler replies "What kind of scary-ass clowns came to your birthday parties?". There is a scene in a later Friends episode in which Joey (after Chandler suggests playing paper, rock, scissors to see which one has to go and tell the hooker to leave Monica and Chandler's apartment) says "I miss this". I do too Joe, I do too.


3. The One Where Heckles Dies (1995)
In a rare, and most welcome, moment of dark humour (that's right I spell it with a 'u') the tenant that lives below Monica and Rachel taps on his ceiling with a broom. Above him Monica and Rachel think that he is telling them to be quiet so quite naturally they begin violently tapping their feet against the floor. Eventually the tapping stops and moments later it is revealed that the man was having a heart attack and trying to call the girls for help. Heckles dies, leaving all of his belongings to the girls. In his apartment Chandler finds the old man's old high school year book and begins to realize several traits the two had in common, which results in Chandler fearing that he will also die alone. If only Friends was always so black it could have been brilliant. Raise a glass, to what could have been. 


2. The One With the Prom Video (1996)
Flashback episode! No, not the annoying our-writers-are-inconsistent-non-prolific-losers-so-here's-something-to-complete-the-network-order kind of way, but rather the kind where the group watches Monica's old prom video and it's really good. You get to see Ross with an afro (clichéd, yes, but still funny), a very obese Monica, a Rachel before her nose-job, and Chandlers trademark sarcastic quips. Everything works in this episode, and it would have been number one in several other series' lists but Friends has one more moment of glory that surpasses even this one.


1. The One With the Embryos (1998)
Gambling makes EVERYTHING better, especially sports and television. In this legendary episode Joey and Chandler successfully guess every item in Rachel's purse and the girls' grocery bag. This leads to a trivia contest to see which two know more about the other two with Ross as the "quiz master". The score tied up in the final round, prompting the players to raise the stakes: if the girls win, Joey and Chandler must get rid of the chick and the duck (animals that had been living in the apartment), but if the guys win, Monica and Rachel must give up their apartment. It concludes with the question: "What is Chandlers job?". A baffled Rachel responds in uncertainty "He's a.... a Transponster!", to which an enraged Monica replies "That's not even a word!" The boys win, move in to Monica and Rachel's apartment, and the rest is television history. This is a perfect example of why people watch television; not only is it the best Friends episode but one the most enjoyable episodes in television history. Just Perfect. 



The Worst Episode

The One With the Christmas in Tulsa (2002)
What part of 'flashback episodes suck' don't the Friends writers understand? It's never worse, or more predictable, than here. Chandler must spend Christmas in, you guessed it, Tulsa! There a co-worker tries to seduce him, resulting in a series of flashbacks reminding Chandler of why he loves Monica. If you're having a hard time believing all of my previous claims about all of the contemporary shows that surpass Friends, look no further than "The One With the Christmas in Tulsa".



My Best Friend

Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry)
You can have your needy Rachels and your compassionate Joeys but for me, it's Chandler all the way. Take out Chandler's sarcastic quips and what do you have? A bland show for the emotionally tacky. Think about all of the times you've laughed at Friends, chances are they are because of or at the expense of Mr. Bing.

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SEE ALSO > www.nbc.com/Friends 
SEE ALSO > http://www.friends-tv.org/epguide.html