F.R.I.E.N.D.S

I know I'm two and a half decades late for a post like this.

(For the uninitiated: F.R.I.E.N.D.S is a TV-show which started airing way back in 1994 when I was not even in this body.)

My social circle is not of people who watch such TV shows (or at least they don't talk about shows with me at all because of my lack of interest/time) so I had not heard much about this show earlier. Not that, I was completely unaware of its existence. But somehow it didn't catch my fancy. 

Earlier, I was too young to watch it given the boldness that foreign content offers. Neither could I understand such fluent and accented English, nor were there any channels on our cable network that would have provided access to it.

Just a few months ago, a much-talking colleague at my office had even recommended watching it, but her talkativeness must have spoiled the review I guess. I tried watching its bloopers to develop some liking (thanks to Youtube suggestions) but didn't find them much worthy. By the way, I've now seen all of them that are out there. Moreover, it has that fake laughter audio that used to be played in the comedy shows back then. Ugh! (I just got to know that those were from the actual laughing of the live audience, just that the timing was edited out to fit into the apt scenes.) 

Nowadays, given the trend of web series, I was getting recommendations of multiple successful series. I even saw 1 or 2 of the popular ones. I guess, I still am too young for the boldness (or cuss words) that they offer. *Wink* 

I didn't mean young what I meant was that I don't want to hear such words so often that they start appearing in my daily language or that they find a place in my mind to play. 

So I was looking for a clean and comic series that would lighten the hectic routine of life. This name kept appearing in almost all the top tens. On impulse, I downloaded one of the episodes to give it a shot. To my surprise, it immediately struck a chord for some unknown reason. It surely was not because of the relativeness factor, for I don't have many friends with whom I hang out all day long. Comedy was the key I guess.

After an episode or two, on seeing me watching it, my sibling had asked me about my favourite character. I was confused but I chose 'Chandler' out of guys and 'Phoebe' out of girls because I had to. "Yeah, everyone chants 'Chandler's name only," she then asked me, "Why not Joey or Ross or..." and I had nodded on almost all the characters. 

But now I have a definite sequence clear in my mind. It's Chandler, Joey, Monica-Phoebe, Ross and then Rachel. Rachel can be conveniently placed in disliked group, majorly because of the lead star treatment given to her. It is almost in each season that her birthday is celebrated when nobody else's is planned the way hers is and many other unlistable reasons. I was surprised to see on Wikipedia later on that she won the award for the most popular out of them all. Joey and Monica grabbed up the ladder in the second half of the show. Earlier they didn't affect me, neither positively nor negatively.

Now, on one of the re-unions where everyone else was talking about the web series that they had seen. I just had 2-3 names to tell. But on hearing the number of seasons that F.R.I.E.N.D.S has, one is taken aback for a moment. "How can you manage 10 seasons 24 episodes each?" is one of the reactions. Even I get a little surprised when I look back, though I took nearly 4 months to complete it.

There are plenty of moments when something happens in real life and I am reminded of some scene of the show. Like I actually know the characters and been in those situations with them. It will stay with me for life; it seems so at the moment. 

I find it a little odd that even after the show being 25 years old, it still doesn't feel outdated. No doubt, you'll notice absence of smartphones and LEDs occasionally but TV like computers make up for it. Nevertheless, the human bond is still the same. (Also, you'll not have to wait for the next season to release, to get the suspense to unfold. It all depends upon your internet plan and speed and your time, of course.)

One thing that I didn't understand even after watching 10 seasons of it back to back is that why is it spelt the way as the abbreviations are. Do tell me the reason if you get to know it. Unnecessary dots after each letter. It really gave me a hard time typing its name here.

No offence to in-house-content, but remakes are just not my cup of tea. (And a rush of crime mysteries and violence - I used to like them but I've had my share). So, switching to watching International movies & shows was the other option and the appeal of local content was lost instantly. No doubt, exceptions are also there. 

PS: A tribute is paid by Google to each of the protagonists. All you need to do is search using this format, "Friends Chandler" or "Friends Ross" or "Friends Phoebe" and so on. Upon clicking the mini icon appearing at the right of the name result they play out the associated trick.