The monkey was a strange storyline. I found it strange re-watching Friends in full that in the early seasons, even when it became very popular and mainstream, it was quite eccentric with some story lines. The chick and duck as well. Animals weren't the only weird storylines, but they stand out the most as just being odd and not necessarily that fitting of the characters.

Yeah, it was definitely quirky in the early days.

Firstly every single character except maybe Chandler was completely egocentric and selfish.

The ages were a joke! Monica states that she is 27 in the episode she meets Richard (1995) and her and Rachel were in the same grade in school suggesting both were born 1969/1970.

Yet Rachel celebrates her 30th birthday late in season 7 (2001) when she should've been celebrating her 33rd.

Also, every single season premiere picks up minutes after the former season finale.

That removes the four months off screen effectively removing 31 months (2 years, 7 months) from the timeline. Yet somehow there's a Christmas episode every season.

Chandler is seen meeting Rachel on three seperate occasions in the 1980's but doesn't seem to have met her in the pilot - having only, realistically, made out with her 8 years earlier (pilot is 1994, by the timeline Ross would've attended college from 1986-1990)

Joey spentn about 4 episodes crying about Monica and Chandler moving away and yet - even though his 3 other best friends remained in New York he randomly decided to move to L.A straight after.

Just watched this one, it was Magnum Force, not Magnum P.I.

Are we surprised? What about DENISE??!?

That's true. There's a Rachel quote and for the life of me now I can't remember what it relates to but she says she ''always regarded Phoebe as something of a question mark'' or something like that.

There was a later episode where he says "Remember when I had a monkey?" and they nod, and Ross says "...what was I thinking?".

I like when just after he got rid of Marcel Monica says "I can still smell monkey in here" and Julie says to Ross "well that saves us a conversation"

I love that bit!

Not sure where to post this, but as its Friends related I thought I would post it here.

I have just recently got into this show, and was wondering if someone could guide me on what box set would be best for me to buy.

The new Blu-ray set or the 15th anniversary DVD box set for the longer episodes?

Thanks

The numbers on the apartment doors always irritated me. I mean, how hard would it have been for that set dressers to keep that consistent? I think they did it just to piss off the anal among us.

They made a mistake making Rachel have a baby in the first place, and don't get me started on Joey and Rachel

And better for it.

The episodes don't all follow on minutes after each other so there's obviously big gaps between other episodes.

I don't really find that a gripe, it's like on Lost where each episode would be set the day after or a couple at the most after the previous episodes and then in later seasons it jumps forward several months and then 3 years. It doesn't have to move along at the same pace all the time.


Lol, it was only changed once and was because the scenery they'd put in the apartment window depicted it on a higher floor than 3 or 4 would be so they moved them up a bit.

I preferred the middle seasons. Seasons 1 and 2 were kind of dull, 3-7 were great and then 8-10 were too silly.

Almost every show does that, especially when they end on a cliffhanger.

The timeline then jumps forward a bit as the season progresses, its not like every weekly episode is set a week directly after the previous one, sometimes its 3 weeks sometimes it might be a few days, we don't know as its not mentioned aside from a few episodes where they may mention something from the last episode and mention it happened a few weeks back etc.

Every show has and will always do the same

Joey.

He went from being slightly dumb to being a full blown moron who I felt almost had to be told how to walk again. The episode of him Learning French for example, he had dumb moments before but this one just took the biscuit. How the hell can somebody be just that stupid? I cannot watch that episode at all without filling with rage.

I suspect there's a missing episode out there somewhere called The One Where Joey Suffers Some Kind of Major Head Trauma

Yea I don't know why they did that with Rachel, if Jennifer Anniston had been preggers in real life I could understand.
It was a strange direction to bring her character

I still don't get Chandler, his phone and his girlfriend storyline in season 1.

He admits he turns his phone off at the beginning, then he frets about this girl not calling him and when he does get in contact with this girl he tells her that he turned his phone off

I did not really twig until I visited the Warner Bros Studios in Hollywood, and saw the CENTRAL PERKS set, that the show actually finished in 2004 !

I read that they wrote it in just in case she and Brad got pregnant.

I liked Rachel getting pregnant but hated that Ross was the father...the whole storyline for that was ridiculously contrived

I thought giving Rachel a baby was a actually a good direction for her character. Making Ross the father was the mis step.

Just like I enjoyed her living at Joey's and them becoming closer friends, but the whole Joey/Rachel crush storyline was the mis step.

Here's one for poor old Phoebe again, she's getting a right thrashing on this thread!
Anyway, when her and Mike decided to get married where did they get the wedding money from?
I know Mike was meant to be loaded but Phoebe was always broke.
I thought it was interesting that they showed her turmoil about donating the money and make the "selfish" decision only to have her wedding day wrecked first by Monica and then by the weather. So she ended up with the simple ceremony she really wanted but no money to charity...