- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 22, 1994
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Critic Reviews
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At its best, Friends operates like a first-rate Broadway farce, complete with slamming doors, twisty plots, and intricately strung together jokes. And even when it's not at its best, the crack acting and piquant punchlines give Friends a momentum and charm that win you over even if you're not laughing.
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The sexy, urbane Friends -- from Marta Kauffman, David Crane and Kevin Bright, the people responsible for the HBO super-comedy "Dream On" -- starts fairly strongly tonight, improves next Thursday and in week three gets on a grand, hilarious, rip-roaring roll. It's the perfect series to bridge "Mad About You" and "Seinfeld." [22 Sept 1994, p.F1]
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The best new sitcom of the fall...It's a very strong cast. [22 Sept 1994, p.1D]
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All the weird, impulsive jokes are as outrageously funny as they aspire to be. [22 Sept 1994, p.1C]
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What helps Friends is that the show's creators have come up with a highly likable group of actors who are talented and charming, if not rip-roaringly funny. [21 Sept 1994, p.C2]
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The show's saving grace is that as the weeks go by, the characters begin to grow on you. That has more to do with the actors' animation than it does with the rimshot writing.
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Though it has its share of irritating characters and moronic moments - especially in the pilot - this is far and away the best of this season's so-called Gen X comedies. [22 Sept 1994, p.3D]
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The clever series, from the creators of HBO's "Dream On", stars an appealing group of actors who are just a bit funnier and better-looking than your average friend. [22 Sept 1994, p.43]
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None of the six main actors is a stand-up comic, but they're appealing nonetheless...If the scripts get a little sharper, Friends may attract enough of the right demographics to become a hit. [22 Sept 1994]
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In short, they do what friends do, only they do more of it more often. Too often, actually. That constant comic bantering grows a little tired, just as it would if it ever actually happened in real life. [22 Sept 1994, p.C1]
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Concept is OK, but the humor's less sophisticated than expected from the exec producers of HBO's comedy series "Dream On," and the dialogue is not exactly snappy. Ross: "I honestly don't know if I'm hungry or horny!" Chandler: "Stay out of my freezer."
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The trouble with "Friends" is that Cox is not strong enough as a comedian. [5 Sep 1994]
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Tonight's new NBC sitcom from the producers of HBO's "Dream On" hands us still one more batch of self-consciously quirky, single, more-or-less charming twentysomething characters and lets them hang for a half-hour reading faux Woody Allen lines. [22 Sept 1994, p.36]
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Amiable but not memorable, Friends becomes an overcrowded "Ellen," which remains a junior-varsity "Seinfeld" wannabe. [22 Sept 1994, p.7E]
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Wildly uneven. [22 Sept 1994]
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So it's come to this - all talk and no action... Some of the lines are funny and several of the stars, particularly Aniston and David Schwimmer, who plays Ross, are appealing. But something is missing here and that something is a story. Where's the beef?[22 Sept 1994, p.F1]
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Friends is the new "Seinfeld" wannabe, but it will never be as funny as "Seinfeld." Even as "Seinfeld" is now, which isn't as funny as it used to be.[22 Sept 1994, p.10]
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All the characters lie on the couch a lot. While it's noted that they do have jobs, they seem to spend most of their time eating Oreos and watching TV. (Hey, that's my life. . . .) And they talk, but most of what they have to say isn't very funny. [22 Sept 1994, p.6G]
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A phony-to-the-core twentysomething sitcom. ... This earnestly flaky show from the creators of Dream On runs the gamut from '30s romantic farce to Seinfeldian trivia... without being believable for a moment.
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Friends comes across like a 30-minute commercial for Dockers or Ikea or light beer, except it's smuttier. One character says he dreamed he had a telephone for a penis and when it rang, "it turns out it's my mother." And this is in the first five minutes...Another ghastly creation from professional panderers Marta Kauffman and David Crane, the witless duo who do "Dream On" for HBO, Friends is more a scripted talk show than a sitcom. You keep waiting for Sally Jessy or some other cluck to interrupt the jabbering. The show is so bad that Sally Jessy would actually come as a relief. [22 Sept 1994, p.D1]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 468 out of 525
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Mixed: 12 out of 525
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Negative: 45 out of 525
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Feb 7, 2011
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May 21, 2013This tv show has redefined'''' BRILLIANCE''
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Nov 2, 2010