I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

In the deluge of Friends related articles posted all over the internet yesterday, one of my favorites was this interactive post about which friends shared the most scenes together. Check it out!

As you can probably easily guess, Friends is very important to me. Unfortunately the show was born the same year I was, so I was far too young to watch it during its first run, but I had an equally influential experience with it. The summer before my freshman year of high school, I watched the DVD my parents had of season one on a whim.

I fell in love and with each successive allowance payment (Remember allowance? I miss it), I bought the next season, watching every episode in order on my tiny portable DVD player lying on the floor of my bedroom and loving every minute of it. That summer I watched every single one of the show's 236 episodes. I continued to watch the show every morning while I ate breakfast for a period of about three and a half years. So although I missed out on the first run, I did get the experience of viewing them all in order and a lifetime's worth of reruns, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

And all of this makes me the utmost authority on describing...

The Top Ten Friends Seasons

#10 Season Nine

Started: September 26, 2002

Ended: May 15, 2003

Highlight Episodes: "The One in Barbados," "The One with the Soap Opera Party," "The One with Phoebe's Birthday Dinner"

Although Season Nine had its fair share of comedic moments (the final episode in Barbados especially), it was bogged down with a bit too much plot. The series was drawing to a close at this point, so the show runners needed to stir the pot to provide momentum for the grand finale. Phoebe met, dated, and broke up with Mike, Rachel fell in love with Joey, and Ross started dating a beautiful paleontologist. Although it was all entertaining enough, each of the plots was clearly setting up for something much bigger so it was more anticipatory than actually telling a story.

#9 Season One

Started: September 22, 1994

Ended: May 18, 1995

Highlight Episodes: "The One with George Stephanopolous," "The One with the Dozen Lasagnas," "The Pilot"

Although Season One is responsible for making the world fall in love with Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Ross, and Rachel, like many TV sitcoms, it was still finding its feet at first. Although the clever writing was still there, the show didn't find many of its best gags and relationships until it had time to fully develop the characters and their plot lines. And this is the season where Ross gets a monkey, and I haven't met a single person who was pleased with that development.

#8 Season Seven

Started: October 12, 2000

Ended: May 17, 2001

Highlight Episodes: "The One with Chandler's Dad," "The One with All the Cheesecakes," "The One Where They're Up All Night"

Season Seven was still coasting on the high of the Friends Golden Age, which would end somewhere around Season Eight. Although the show would consistently put out a slate of stellar episodes and was by all accounts a massive success, the ratings wouldn't ever really be the same. This season might be slightly responsible for that because, for all its slickness and humor, it feels like more of the same before all the weirdness of the later seasons came in to spice things up again.

#7 Season Two

Started: September 21, 1995

Ended: May 16, 1996

Highlight Episodes: "The One with the Lesbian Wedding," "The One with the Baby On the Bus," "The One with the Prom Video"

Looking back on the show as a whole, Season Two is great but it almost feels like a different show. The cast was still settling into their roles somewhat and the design and writing were still a little stuck in the 90's. But this is the season in that cemented in the show as a major hit despite the atrocities committed by Courteney Cox's bangs.

#6 Season Ten

Started: September 25, 2003

Ended: May 6, 2004

Highlight Episodes: "The One Where Joey Speaks French," "The One with Princess Consuela," "The One Where Ross is Fine"

Season Ten was plagued with wacky scheduling and budgetary constraints and was truncated by about six episodes, but the writing team pulled together to send out the beloved show with a tremendous hurrah, resulting in some of the funniest half hours of television of the decade, although things at this point were a little too polished and modern to have the supernova charm that the show maintained throughout the late 90's.

#5 Season Eight

Started: September 27, 2001

Ended: May 16, 2002

Highlight Episodes: "The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath," "The One with the Secret Closet,"The One Where Joey Dates Rachel"

Perhaps this one is a more personal choice, but I adored Season Eight. The writers found themselves breaking out of their rut and starting playing more with the characters, pushing them every which way to see what they could do. Although Rachel's pregnancy was an odd journey, the antics of the Friends around her were enjoyable as ever.

#4 Season Five

Started: September 24, 1998

Ended: May 20, 1999

Highlight Episodes: "The One with All the Thanksgivings," "The One Where Everybody Finds Out," "The One in Vegas"

Season Five was Friends at its serialistic best. At this point, it was more than a mere sitcom. The show was allowed to have continuing story lines across episodes because who the hell wasn't watching Friends in 1998? Some of the series' most enduring comedy comes from Chandler and Monica's interactions with their Friends as they try to keep their blossoming a relationship a secret. This was the season that introduced the series' most stable intra-Friend relationship, providing a hilarious counterpoint to the ever-rocky ground that Ross and Rachel found themselves on.

#3 Season Four

Started: September 25, 1997

Ended: May 7, 1998

Highlight Episodes: "The One with the Embryos," "The One with the Jellyfish," "The One with Chandler in a Box"

Handcuffs! Thanksgiving! Free porn! Season Four had it all and, in fact, includes my very favorite episode of the entire series. Although not much plot of import happened in the long run, this season had a series of hilarious episodes that would become eventual classics.

#2 Season Six

Started: September 23, 1999

Ended: May 18, 2000

Highlight Episodes: "The One Where Ross Got High," "The One That Could Have Been," "The One Where Phoebe Runs"

The Season Six writers were on their game, providing creative avenues for the Friends' misadventures including the utterly genius alternate timeline of "The One That Could Have Been." This season cemented in the relationship of Chandler and Monica, who had surprisingly become the center of the show's romantic tension. Their heartwarming engagement in the finale kept fans on their toes and laughing.

#1 Season Three

Started: September 19, 1996

Ended: May 15, 1997

Highlight Episodes: "The One at the Beach," "The One with the Flashback," "The One Where No One's Ready"

Season Three was where the show really hit its stride as the zeitgeist hit of the decade. This season depicted the most Ross and Rachel action across the entire series and introduced mountains of callback jokes and beloved recurring characters. 30% of my top 10 episodes came from this season alone and the series was still fresh enough for every next show to feel new and exciting. This season is responsible for the success of the entire series and the reason we all remember it even an entire decade later. Thank you, Season Three.

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Hanging With My Friends

Did you feel like feeling old today? Well if not, I have bad news for you. Today marks ten years since the final episode of Friends came on the air. We've lived in a Friendsless world for a decade and I'm not OK with that. I truly love my Friends, so this post and the rest of the posts this week are dedicated to the television sitcom that shaped the bulk of my adolescent life. Today's topic is

The Top Ten Friends Episodes

#10 The One with George Stephanopoulos (Season One, Episode 4)

Air Date: October 13, 1994

Director: James Burrows

Writer: Alexa Junge

As with most TV sitcoms, the first episodes of Friends were funny, but stood on uneven ground. The audience is still learning the characters and the writers are still shaking off the cobwebs and learning how to write stories in this newly created world. "The One with George Stephanopolous" is the episode where the humor and the plot really started to click and the girls' sleepover showcased what would soon become the show's strong suit - just letting these characters be themselves and hang out, allowing us a glimpse into their lives without stress or absurd stakes, merely letting the humor and joie de vivre speak for themselves.

Best Line:

Monica: Hey Joey, what would you do if you were omnipotent?

Joey: Probably kill myself.

Monica: Excuse me? 

Joey: Hey, if Little Joey's dead, I've got no reason to live.

Ross: Um, Joey. OM-nipotent.

Joey: You are? I'm so sorry!  

#9 The One Where No One's Ready (Season Three, Episode 2)

Air Date: September 26, 1996

Director: Gail Mancuso

Writer: Ira Ungerleider

Perhaps the best bottle episode of all time (a trope named by the Star Trek writers for low budget episodes with no excess spending), "The One Where No One's Ready" features just the main cast in just one single location in more or less real time as Ross tries to rush and get everybody ready for a gala event at his museum. Again, letting the Friends be friends and just watching their interactions without distractions allowed for the comedy and performances to rise to the top.

Best Line:

Chandler: In the words of A. A. Milne, "Get out of my chair, dillhole."

#8 The One with the Flashback (Season Three, Episode 6)

Air Date: October 31, 1996

Director: Peter Bonerz

Writer: David Krane & Marta Kaufmann

Although TV shows are frequently prone to having "Very Special Episodes" that have nothing to do with the main plot (Glee is among the worst shows propagating the trope), the alternative episodes in Friends would rank among some of the best in the show due to the sharp writing and audience familiarity with the characters. "The One with the Flashback" the first episode to truly embark upon that path, depicting events that took place before the pilot and showing how different combinations of the Friends had near-miss sexual encounters with one another. The episode relied on previous knowledge of the characters' current personalities and situations to land most of its jokes, which could kill the comedy on a lot of shows, but not Friends. The sitcom was such a zeitgeist that nobody in the world could have had trouble understanding even the most involved punchlines.

Best Line:

Phoebe: Cute Naked Guy is really starting to put on weight.

#7 The One with All the Thanksgivings (Season Five, Episode 8)

Air Date: November 19, 1998

Director: Kevin S. Bright

Writer: Gregory S. Malins

I must love flashbacks, because "The One with All the Thanksgivings" trumps a series full of incredibly stellar Thanksgiving episodes. We get to see all of our favorite characters in awful 80's fashions, Phoebe in her past lives, and Joey making a fool out of himself as everybody competes to see who has the worst Thanksgiving story.

Best Line:

Rachel: Joey got a turkey stuck on his head?

Joey: Hey, it's not how it sounds.

Chandler: It's exactly how it sounds! 

#6 The One with Chandler's Dad (Season Seven, Episode 22)

Air Date: May 10, 2001

Director: Kevin S. Bright & Gary Halvorson

Writer: Brian Buckner & Sebastian Jones

LGBT representation on television in the 90's was, let's say "thin on the ground." But in a show that introduces a lesbian couple in the first season and a gay ice dancer soon after that, Friends was never afraid of addressing the topic, and it has never been funnier than when Chandler visits his father's drag revue in Las Vegas. Sure, her getup is played for laughs but it's a comedy show. At heart, this character is taken very seriously and despite Chandler's hesitations (due to his own insecurities about his sexuality), he really does love his dad (played to the nines by the stunning Kathleen Turner). And the rest of us do too, because he's freaking hilarious.

Best Line:

Chandler: He had sex with Mr. Garibaldi!

Monica: Who's Mr. Garibaldi?

Chandler: Does it matter?! 

#5 The One Where Joey Speaks French (Season Ten, Episode 13)

Air Date: February 19, 2004

Director: Gary Halvorson

Writer: Sherry Bilsing-Graham & Ellen Plummer

Although the scheduling for the tenth season was haphazard due to the show's impending finale and the stars' enormous salaries, it provided some of the funniest episodes yet, including "The One Where Joey Speaks French," which tells the heartwarming tale of Joey utterly failing to pick up a foreign language in order to audition for a play, much to Phoebe's dismay. It's a hilarious cautionary tale. Kids, make sure that if you put something on your resume, you can actually do that thing. Blee Bloo Blah!

Best Line:

Joey: My audition is tomorrow! Che ble blah! Me la pee! Oublah! Poo...

#4 The One That Could Have Been (Season Six, Episodes 15 & 16)

Air Date: February 17, 2000

Director: Michael Lembeck

Writer: Gregory S. Malins & Adam Chase / David Krane & Marta Kaufmann

Here's another alternative timeline episode that relies on current knowledge of the show to slam dunk the jokes. This two parter shows what the Friends' lives would have been like if Monica was still fat, Chandler was a struggling writer, Rachel had married Barry, Ross had never gotten divorced, Joey never got fired from Days of Our Lives, and Phoebe had taken that job at Merrill-Lynch. The episode provided a great opportunity for the actors to play around with their characters and was a breath of fresh air in the middle of a show that had fallen into an expected (but admittedly hilarious) routine.

Best Line:

Monica: Phoebe, having a heart attack is just nature's way of telling you to slow down.

Chandler: I always thought having a heart attack was nature's way of telling you to die... But - you're not gonna die. Well, you are gonna die. But you're not gonna die today. I wish I was dead.

#3 The One Where Ross Got High (Season Six, Episode 9)

Air Date: November 25, 1999

Director: Kevin Bright

Writer: Gregory S. Malins

Remember when I said that Thanksgiving episodes were typically the best? I wasn't kidding. The joy that stems from them relies again on the interaction between just the Friends themselves and only one or two guest stars. This time around, Ross and Monica's parents are in town for the holiday and the plot descends into an I Love Lucy style farce as Rachel screws up dessert and everybody else attempts to keep secrets hidden from one another. The explosion that occurs at the very end is one of the funniest minutes of television ever filmed.

Best Line:

Joey: What's not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!

#2 The One at the Beach (Season Three, Episode 25)

Air Date: May 15, 1997

Director: Pamela Fryman

Writer: Pang-Ni Landrum & Mark Kunerth

By the end of season three, Friends had really gotten into the swing of things and this finale was one of the best, a sublime mixture of typical season-ending plot theatrics (Ross must choose between Rachel and his girlfriend Bonnie) and just plain stellar humor (the gang's beach vacation is ruined by a flood that renders the entire lower floor of the house covered in sand).

Best Line:

Phoebe Abbott Sr.: You know this house is an unusual house because there's three bedrooms and no bath. But the ocean's right there. 

#1 The One with the Embryos (Season Four, Episode 12)

Air Date: January 15, 1998

Director: Kevin S. Bright

Writer: Jill Condon & Amy Toomin

As Phoebe prepares to be a surrogate mother for her infertile brother's children, the rest of the gang plays a hilarious trivia game to prove which set of Friends knows each other better - Monica and Rachel or Chandler and Joey. This episode is full of unbridled joy and the trivia questions combined with Ross's apparent glee at coming up with them provide many avenues for comedy smack dab in the middle of the Friends Golden Age.

Best Line:

Joey: It's the chick. She's going through some changes.

Monica: What kind of changes?

Chandler: The vet seems to think she's becoming a rooster. We're getting a second opinion. 

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