Richard Zoglin's Friends
“Who’s “FICA”? Why’s he getting all my money?” wonders a curious Rachel Green as she opens up her first paycheck as a waitress and is disappointed at the meager salary that all the hours she had worked generated for her. Consequentially, Rachel’s in her precarious position, because in an ultimate showing of women empowerment, Rachel left her life as a rich socialite in which she was going to end up the pampered housewife of an orthodontist, to make it on her own in New York City. Narratives such as Rachel’s quest for the American Dream is what makes the first season of the sitcom Friends so thoroughly entertaining. However, the show is not just about each character’s personal narrative, but also how this group of six friends with different
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Time critic Richard Zoglin wrote that “Togetherness ad absurdum seems to be the idea behind Friends, a phony-to-the-core twentysomething sitcom…[revolving] around a half a dozen postcollegiate pals…who apparently have unlimited time to hand out at the local coffee bar”. Respectfully so, I disagree with Zoglin’s critic. First, what’s so phony about it? The dialogue comes off naturally, and seamlessly moves from humor to drama, and as the situations build up, back to humor for comedic relief. Another critic, Ken Tucker, noted the mastery of the dialogue when he wrote that “At its best, Friends operates like a first-rate Broadway farce, complete with slamming doors, twisty plots, and intricately strung together …show more content…
Ken Tucker, would add in his review that “The vagueness of these characters is similar to the lack of concrete detail that makes many other sitcoms a headache-inducing bore. With Friends, however, this barely matters”. The reason that the lack of concrete details does not matter is because as the season continues so does the growth of the characters. Take Joey Tribbiani, the most outright sexually flaunting member of the group, taking the time to emotionally connect to a woman giving birth and supporting her with it, showing that he’s capable of growing beyond his frat boy
Time critic Richard Zoglin wrote that “Togetherness ad absurdum seems to be the idea behind Friends, a phony-to-the-core twentysomething sitcom…[revolving] around a half a dozen postcollegiate pals…who apparently have unlimited time to hand out at the local coffee bar”. Respectfully so, I disagree with Zoglin’s critic. First, what’s so phony about it? The dialogue comes off naturally, and seamlessly moves from humor to drama, and as the situations build up, back to humor for comedic relief. Another critic, Ken Tucker, noted the mastery of the dialogue when he wrote that “At its best, Friends operates like a first-rate Broadway farce, complete with slamming doors, twisty plots, and intricately strung together …show more content…
Ken Tucker, would add in his review that “The vagueness of these characters is similar to the lack of concrete detail that makes many other sitcoms a headache-inducing bore. With Friends, however, this barely matters”. The reason that the lack of concrete details does not matter is because as the season continues so does the growth of the characters. Take Joey Tribbiani, the most outright sexually flaunting member of the group, taking the time to emotionally connect to a woman giving birth and supporting her with it, showing that he’s capable of growing beyond his frat boy