Friends Gripes

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  • Paul1511Paul1511 Posts: 11,578
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    It's one of my favourite episodes and I acknowledge there has to be a bit of a suspension of logic and reality for the sake of the comedy.

    But in the One with Ross and the Sandwich, it always irks me that it is totally unreasonable behaviour of the professor to take and eat the sandwich, so Ross does have every reason to go mental, even if it is way over the top over a mere sandwich. Theft is theft though.

    Off topic, it reminds me of a weirdo in university halls who claimed he pissed in his milk and put glass in his spag bol after someone had been nicking his food from a communal fridge. Turns out the culprit was my mate, who i am still friends with after 20 years.
  • susziesuszie Posts: 119
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    Another thing that comes to mind, when ross has a date and rachel and pheobe take him shopping and rachel says she will pick some stuff out for ross but somehow mix the bags up, so ross and his date are wearing the same top, what really bugged me was that top fitted ross perfectly even though it was meant for rachel who is clearly smaller than ross.
  • djfunnymandjfunnyman Posts: 12,566
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    SgtRock wrote: »
    I watched this episode today. I don't know if this line is just exclusive to the Region 1 boxsets, but towards the end of it Joey says "Do bears s**t in the woods?" Very surprised to hear that word used in a Friends episode! (and I've seen the episode before, but obviously forgotten that it's there)

    Surely before Chandler asked what the girls name was Joey and Ross should have realised already that they were dating the same girl
  • Jennifer JayneJennifer Jayne Posts: 9,022
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    cliffy91 wrote: »
    One thing I've never got is why when Ross & Rachel first have sex at ross' work they are in some presentation room,so why would they go from that rather private room and end up in a public display where everyone can see them?

    Wasn't it for a picnic so that Ross could set the display off to make it more romantic?
  • Paul1511Paul1511 Posts: 11,578
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    On Comedy Central recently, they have been showing a long clip of the scene where Rachel finds out that Monica went shopping with her love rival Julie.

    The scene plays out in the same style as if someone had just discovered their partner had been cheating on them, with cliched lines such as 'it only happened once', 'I was thinking about you the whole time' and 'it didn't mean anything.

    But this is a style of humour they seemed to use often. The first example I recall was when Monica was dating a guy called Alan, who all the friends love, but eventually Monica isn't as keen and breaks up with him. When she tells the others, the scene plays out as if they are breaking up with him.

    It also happened with the gay ice skater that Phoebe married, who ended up in fact being straight, again the cliched coming out lines, but in reverse (on some level I always knew I was straight, in college I sometimes got really drunk and slept with girls).

    Pretty sure there were other examples too.
  • loddellboshloddellbosh Posts: 5,315
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    Paul1511 wrote: »
    On Comedy Central recently, they have been showing a long clip of the scene where Rachel finds out that Monica went shopping with her love rival Julie.

    The scene plays out in the same style as if someone had just discovered their partner had been cheating on them, with cliched lines such as 'it only happened once', 'I was thinking about you the whole time' and 'it didn't mean anything.

    But this is a style of humour they seemed to use often. The first example I recall was when Monica was dating a guy called Alan, who all the friends love, but eventually Monica isn't as keen and breaks up with him. When she tells the others, the scene plays out as if they are breaking up with him.

    It also happened with the gay ice skater that Phoebe married, who ended up in fact being straight, again the cliched coming out lines, but in reverse (on some level I always knew I was straight, in college I sometimes got really drunk and slept with girls).

    Pretty sure there were other examples too.

    Another example is when Joey and Chandler get the chick (or duck?) and Chandler spent all day at home with the bird while Joey is at work, then when Joey comes home he wants to go out but Chandler is angry because he has spent all day looking after the chick/duck. It was like he was a bored housewife looking after the child while her husband worked
  • Compton_scatterCompton_scatter Posts: 2,711
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    They definitely took inspiration from Seinfeld in more than one episode (not a grip by the way). The identical hand twin was very Seinfeld (Kramer comes to mind) and the shark porn. Also when something happens to one of the characters, the very next scene is the affected character talking to one of the other Friends about the incident in the coffee shop or one of the apartments - very Seinfeld!

    Of course, the outside shots of the apartment block doesn't seem to resemble the block that has the balcony they're very fond of. Also, some of them have jobs that would take up a lot of their time, but they seem to spend an awful lot of time together in Central Perk etc, but they do sort of make a joke of this in some episodes.

    I suppose if Monica was this clean freak she portrayed, there's no way she would allow the others in the apartment with their shoes on or to eat Pizza etc on the couch without a plate.

    Love Friends by the way, still very watchable 10 years on. Oh and edit, my major grip is that season 10 is only 18 episodes long (some of these are longer than the usual 22 minutes, but still, the final season could have been the full 24/25 episodes)!
  • wallabinowallabino Posts: 123
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    One that springs to mind is in the two episodes Rachel's sister Jill appears.

    In the first episode Monica had a very bad cold and speaks all bunged up and then by the time she comes out the bedroom at the beginning of the second episode (which immediately follows on time wise) she speaks perfectly fine no sign of a cold.

    I know it's a different episode and monica and chandlers story is now about him not being able to cry but as its practically a two parter everyone would have seen the first part first so bit of a follow on with the cold would have been more believable.
  • Compton_scatterCompton_scatter Posts: 2,711
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    Another one, in the episode where Chandler can't remember which sister (Season 3), when he goes to the house Joey answers and asks Chandler if he'd like to meet his grandmother "who was the 8th person to spit on Mussolini" (or something like that).

    In the episode where Joey wants to change his name, Chandler jokingly tries to get him to change it to Joseph Mussolini (amongst other names), then when Joey tries he acts all surprised when he finds out he was some famous dictator. He had obviously heard of Mussolini going by the earlier incident.
  • PointyPointy Posts: 1,762
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    I love Friends, but it's a classic example of American sitcoms and bad continuity! The Big Bang Theory has it's fair share of episodes which contradict themselves as well.
  • naquadanaquada Posts: 1,213
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    Another one, in the episode where Chandler can't remember which sister (Season 3), when he goes to the house Joey answers and asks Chandler if he'd like to meet his grandmother "who was the 8th person to spit on Mussolini" (or something like that).

    In the episode where Joey wants to change his name, Chandler jokingly tries to get him to change it to Joseph Mussolini (amongst other names), then when Joey tries he acts all surprised when he finds out he was some famous dictator. He had obviously heard of Mussolini going by the earlier incident.

    It was Joseph Stalin, not Mussolini that Chandler suggested.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOzYT4lcXuM
  • cris182cris182 Posts: 9,595
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    It's not just an american thing to be fair. A recent birds of a feather episode had an appearance by a character who they actually had a wake for in an earlier episode. I don't get how these things are allowed to happen
  • Compton_scatterCompton_scatter Posts: 2,711
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    naquada wrote: »
    It was Joseph Stalin, not Mussolini that Chandler suggested.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOzYT4lcXuM

    Oops, I was going off (dodgy) memory for that bit lol ;-)
  • vkmaxvkmax Posts: 3,093
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    The timeline is always the biggest one for me. Each season picks up where the other left off so there's either 4 months of time between the second and third episode of each season or a huge time gap elsewhere as they fit thanksgiving in every year.
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 23,799
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    Pointy wrote: »
    I love Friends, but it's a classic example of American sitcoms and bad continuity! The Big Bang Theory has it's fair share of episodes which contradict themselves as well.

    Wasn't there an episode of Cheers where Frasier said he was an only child and that his dad was dead?
  • Compton_scatterCompton_scatter Posts: 2,711
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    dodrade wrote: »
    Wasn't there an episode of Cheers where Frasier said he was an only child and that his dad was dead?

    Yeah he mentioned his dead (scientist, not policeman) dad a few times on Cheers, this was addressed in the episode where Sam visited Frasier in Seattle and Frasier said he'd fallen out with his father and basically made stuff up about him.
  • GulftasticGulftastic Posts: 127,348
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    dodrade wrote: »
    Wasn't there an episode of Cheers where Frasier said he was an only child and that his dad was dead?

    Worse was when Frasier's Mother appeared in Cheers, and she was quite different to how she was portrayed in his own show. She was a proper snooty cow.
  • TIVO_YORK99TIVO_YORK99 Posts: 317
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    Gulftastic wrote: »
    Worse was when Frasier's Mother appeared in Cheers, and she was quite different to how she was portrayed in his own show. She was a proper snooty cow.

    Didn't she threaten to kill Diane unless she got out of Frasier's life. Like you say, nothing like how she is portrayed in Frasier.
  • mrsmoosemrsmoose Posts: 2,090
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    What bugged me what when they came back for Series 9, Rachel was really skinny again, even though she'd just had Emma.
  • Brummie Girl Brummie Girl Posts: 22,614
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    In either the first episode or the next episode of Series 9 there is a wall directly outside the door to Rachel's room at the hospital yet in the previous episode/s it showed an open area behind this door.
  • Joe_ZelJoe_Zel Posts: 20,832
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    Paul1511 wrote: »
    On Comedy Central recently, they have been showing a long clip of the scene where Rachel finds out that Monica went shopping with her love rival Julie.

    The scene plays out in the same style as if someone had just discovered their partner had been cheating on them, with cliched lines such as 'it only happened once', 'I was thinking about you the whole time' and 'it didn't mean anything.

    But this is a style of humour they seemed to use often. The first example I recall was when Monica was dating a guy called Alan, who all the friends love, but eventually Monica isn't as keen and breaks up with him. When she tells the others, the scene plays out as if they are breaking up with him.

    It also happened with the gay ice skater that Phoebe married, who ended up in fact being straight, again the cliched coming out lines, but in reverse (on some level I always knew I was straight, in college I sometimes got really drunk and slept with girls).

    Pretty sure there were other examples too.

    I think that's a sitcom cliche across the whole board.

    Most sitcoms I've ever watched (US and UK) do this 'making something sound like a relationship breakup' at one time or another.
  • Paul1511Paul1511 Posts: 11,578
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    The One where Ross is Fine is just awful. Aside from Geller acting like a complete meff throughout, the notion that he essentially nicked Charlie from Joey, means he has no real reason to feel fine about accepting Joey and Rachel as an item anyway.

    What is also a gripe is the habit in later seasons of jokes focusing on Ross as a serial divorcer/proposer.

    He only proposed twice one assumes since the drunk Vegas thing was spur of the moment, so hardly a big deal really.
  • djfunnymandjfunnyman Posts: 12,566
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    They definitely took inspiration from Seinfeld in more than one episode (not a grip by the way). The identical hand twin was very Seinfeld (Kramer comes to mind) and the shark porn. Also when something happens to one of the characters, the very next scene is the affected character talking to one of the other Friends about the incident in the coffee shop or one of the apartments - very Seinfeld!

    Of course, the outside shots of the apartment block doesn't seem to resemble the block that has the balcony they're very fond of. Also, some of them have jobs that would take up a lot of their time, but they seem to spend an awful lot of time together in Central Perk etc, but they do sort of make a joke of this in some episodes.

    I suppose if Monica was this clean freak she portrayed, there's no way she would allow the others in the apartment with their shoes on or to eat Pizza etc on the couch without a plate.

    Love Friends by the way, still very watchable 10 years on. Oh and edit, my major grip is that season 10 is only 18 episodes long (some of these are longer than the usual 22 minutes, but still, the final season could have been the full 24/25 episodes)!

    That happens quite a bit in How I Met Your Mother as well
  • Joe_ZelJoe_Zel Posts: 20,832
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    Isn't that pretty much a TV staple in general? :D

    A main character discusses their problems/recent incident to a fellow main character?
  • Hollie_LouiseHollie_Louise Posts: 39,975
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    Paul1511 wrote: »
    The One where Ross is Fine is just awful. Aside from Geller acting like a complete meff throughout, the notion that he essentially nicked Charlie from Joey, means he has no real reason to feel fine about accepting Joey and Rachel as an item anyway.

    What is also a gripe is the habit in later seasons of jokes focusing on Ross as a serial divorcer/proposer.

    He only proposed twice one assumes since the drunk Vegas thing was spur of the moment, so hardly a big deal really.

    I think it's the three marriages in 10 years and was divorced twice and did he and Rachel get the annulment?
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