Standout Episode: “The One with the Embryos”Īs Friends wore on, it became clear that while audiences pined for the romance of Ross and Rachel, Chandler was quickly becoming the favorite character. Which, granted, the show itself even makes fun of in subsequent seasons, but is one of those “huh?” storylines where the series was trying to find its own sitcom identity. There are certainly glimmers of what the show would go on to embrace, like a dash of heartfelt sincerity with regards to Ross’ impending fatherhood and the “will they/won’t they” of Ross and Rachel-a hallmark of Friends if there ever was one-but there are also times when the series gets too goofy for its own good, like giving Ross a pet monkey. Matt LeBlanc’s Joey in particular is a bore as the stereotypical “guy’s guy”, Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe is pitched too far into flower child territory as opposed to lovable oddball, and Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel toes the line between endearing and insufferable as a spoiled daddy’s girl trying to make it on her own. The series’ first season certainly shows promise as an ensemble comedy about twentysomething friendship, but some of the characters audiences would grow to love are significantly different in their initial incarnations. It takes most sitcoms a few episodes to find their groove, and even something as huge as Friends was once stumbling around to find its creative voice. Standout Episode: "The One Where Rachel Finds Out" RELATED: Every 'Friends' Thanksgiving Episdoe Ranked From Worst to Best But Season 9 is also when the writers finally reached the point where they apparently had tackled all the possible road blocks to Ross and Rachel getting together, opting for a hail mary of a story arc in which Rachel falls in love with Joey. However, after much begging from NBC, the cast agreed mid-production to return for an abbreviated tenth season, and so showrunners Marta Kauffman and David Crane had to abandon their finale set-up and start moving things back to a place that could set up the next season.Īll of this to say that there’s a reason Season 9 feels uneven, and while Friends has always been a silly show, you can feel it creatively beginning to run out of steam when there’s a subplot in which Joey can’t remember if he’s already slept with the woman he’s dating.There are bright spots to be sure, namely stellar guest appearances by Christina Applegate as Rachel’s sister and Jon Lovitz as one of Rachel’s highly memorable dates. The actors’ contracts were up and they were getting expensive ($1 million an episode expensive), so the first few episodes of this season set up the show’s finale (eg. Standout Episode: “The One with Rachel’s Other Sister”Īs Friends began production on its ninth season in 2002, all involved were under the impression that it’d be the last one. Regardless, here goes the one where I rank all the Friends seasons:
Even the most uneven of seasons still has its bright spots, which makes my task of ranking all ten seasons from worst to best slightly difficult. You don’t enjoy the kind of long-lasting popularity of Friends without some semblance of quality, and throughout its ten seasons on NBC, the series certainly hit some iconic highs-and more than a couple lows.
#FRIENDS SERIES 5 TV#
Although the beloved series has since left Netflix and is now streaming exclusively on HBO Max.īut as the fall TV season approaches, during which networks will unveil a slew of new sitcoms that can only hope to just barely graze the type of popularity and lasting power that Friends enjoyed, now seems like a fitting time to take a look back at the legacy of the NBC sitcom season-by-season. Most recently, Friends entered the digital age via Netflix’s streaming library, where it reached an entirely new audience. Hand in hand with another NBC sitcom that was underestimated early on- Seinfeld- Friends would become a staple of 1990s pop culture and remain a mainstay in the 21st century, past its end-date, thanks to heavy DVD sales and massive popularity in syndication. It was impossible to imagine that we’d just seen the launch of not only one of the most popular sitcoms in history, but also one of the most enduring. The NBC sitcom Friends debuted in 1994 to so-so ratings and mixed reviews, with many writing it off as simply the next in a line of half-hour comedies that would be off the air within a few years.
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