because it's ON TV
Jun. 22nd, 2004 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauralhI really like the episodes leading up to/right after Ross and Rachel break up. I hated Ross in the beginning because, well, he wasn't as cute as the other characters, and then he was too goody-goody. Well, everyone hated Ross, but after they "broke" him, lost his job and wife and all that, I started to like him. He's still not as cute as anyone else on the show.
"Friends" was supposed to be the 20-something answer to "Seinfeld", but it was a gentle soap opera with fantastic dialogue first of all. It's the relationship, stupid. On Seinfeld everyone dated someone different every week, and only Elaine could sustain a relationship for as long as a month. But on Friends, well, it opened with Ross' marriage disintegrating, and Rachel fleeing from hers. And so the tensions between them undercut the first season, and most of the second, till they got together. See, soap opera. But as it's under 30 episodes a year, it's not as overdramatic and badly written as those.
Oh, sure, they try to put in the Seinfeldian touches. "Why isn't it Spiderman, like Goldman?" "Because, that's not his name, he's SPIDER-MAN. There's no GOLD MAN." "Oooh, there should be a Gold Man." But that's the extent of it. It's far more about the conversations between the characters that lead to things happening, usually a date or shag. Even Rachel trying to get a job is punctuated by the "cute guy" who gives her a lead, and Ross hates him for it. Not because he begrudges Rachel a job, but because he's jealous of the guy in her industry who sees her all the time.
On Seinfeld, George tells a woman he dates that he's a marine biologist, and while on a date, they find a beached whale on the coast. He is unmasked as a fraud and never sees the woman again. Funny? Oh yeah. Realistic? Not really. The Seinfeld characters are caricatures, but monstrous ones. "We're not men! We're little boys!" There's a slight suspicion that maybe Jerry and Elaine will end up together, but, really, never.
Somewhere between these two shows must lie a Golden Ratio of Situation Comedy.
"Friends" was supposed to be the 20-something answer to "Seinfeld", but it was a gentle soap opera with fantastic dialogue first of all. It's the relationship, stupid. On Seinfeld everyone dated someone different every week, and only Elaine could sustain a relationship for as long as a month. But on Friends, well, it opened with Ross' marriage disintegrating, and Rachel fleeing from hers. And so the tensions between them undercut the first season, and most of the second, till they got together. See, soap opera. But as it's under 30 episodes a year, it's not as overdramatic and badly written as those.
Oh, sure, they try to put in the Seinfeldian touches. "Why isn't it Spiderman, like Goldman?" "Because, that's not his name, he's SPIDER-MAN. There's no GOLD MAN." "Oooh, there should be a Gold Man." But that's the extent of it. It's far more about the conversations between the characters that lead to things happening, usually a date or shag. Even Rachel trying to get a job is punctuated by the "cute guy" who gives her a lead, and Ross hates him for it. Not because he begrudges Rachel a job, but because he's jealous of the guy in her industry who sees her all the time.
On Seinfeld, George tells a woman he dates that he's a marine biologist, and while on a date, they find a beached whale on the coast. He is unmasked as a fraud and never sees the woman again. Funny? Oh yeah. Realistic? Not really. The Seinfeld characters are caricatures, but monstrous ones. "We're not men! We're little boys!" There's a slight suspicion that maybe Jerry and Elaine will end up together, but, really, never.
Somewhere between these two shows must lie a Golden Ratio of Situation Comedy.
