User reviews

I have given this show plenty of chances but I always find myself wanting to commit suicide by the end. This show is just not funny. The characters are just so annoying and say and do just stupid things. Not stupid funny but just so dumb. People always compare this to Seinfeld. There is not comparison. Seinfeld will always be one of the most creative and funny shows out there. And not to mention the intro, so so corny. I just don't get the hype.I really gave it my all to watch but it just doesn't make any sense how it's so popular. Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer are also two of the most annoying people. There voices, faces and antics.

It is quite simple. Friends is a comedy of very basic humour aimed at teenagers and young adults, with unsophisticated sense of humour.

It is also painfully obvious that towards the end, they were desperately trying to make it last 10 seasons, most likely so they could say they beat Seinfeld's 9 season run. The trouble with this is, Seinfeld had 9 amazing seasons with great writing, Friends had (and I'm being very generous here) at most 5 or 6 OK seasons and then 4 abysmal seasons.

It became a soap opera with recycled humour and recycled character traits that weren't that good so start with, then got worse at the 100th time you saw them. I find it so hard to understand why people rate this so highly. It is truly awful.

TV does influence society...just look at the surge in popularity of cappucino shops after this shallow little piece of work debuted. Besides, real people who look as good as these people do don't have any problems.

Besides, does anyone really believe that these people can afford to live in a nice Manhattan loft considering what they do for a living? NBC just loves to insult the viewer's intelligence, even if they're just around Gump's level. I know a person who makes $100,000 a year as a web designer and lives in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan that costs $2200 a month in rent.

I'd like to see a show called Phriends, where it's six ugly nobodies in dead-end jobs, living in a crummy neighborhood where sirens constantly wail and someone gets mugged every week...and then the landlord jacks up the rent. Now THAT I would watch.

Friends is probably one of the most overrated television shows in history. I noted a recent IMDb poll about the most overrated TV show resulted in Friends nearing the top of the list.

It's mundane, dull and silly brand of humor is simply painful to watch. A bunch of 20 something year olds peddle out some stupid story lines and sometimes poorly attempt physical comedy. These imbeciles are unimpressive characters that make you cringe rather than laugh. A never ending list of superior shows can be listed that will surpass this show. Friends is a poor man's Seinfeld. Seinfeld is the greatest comedy in TV history, it is an insult to put Friends in the same sentence as Seinfeld. Seinfeld had sky high ratings and one of the most watched finales in history. Friends on the other hand is a rock bottom show which doesn't compare.

The only redeemable aspect of this show is its theme song which is quite good. Whenever I listen to it I pretend it is not associated with this atrocity of a show.

Ive never been able to understand why the succes for this series .

These days this series is still rated 8.9 on IMDB .

Thats some higher then a lot of classic comedyseries that do manage to provide some comedy from time to time .

For me this series mainly delivers lame jokes about relationships and sex , and thats it really .

Just mainly cringe and unfunny jokes and situations that are related to sex and relationships , but it had huge succes .

In a way this series helped pave the way for garbage tv like , Big Brother , MTV series like Jersey Shore , or even the fame and succes of Kim Kardashian .

The series fits in a trend where its all about superficial appearance , but the actual quality of the content doesnt seem to matter anymore , but it sells so all is good .

This show is awful. I don't understand what is wrong with everybody. The only reasonable conclusion that I can come to is that there was some sort of mass hypnosis, whereby everyone was convinced this show was funny. Friends never took any risks, tried anything new, or even attempted to expand the norm. Every week it was the same plot, with some wacky jokes by Phoebe, some moronic jokes by Joey, some boring jokes by Ross and Rachel, some anal retentive jokes by Monica, and some mildly charming jokes by Chandler. I realize, that this inherently is not a bad thing. Not every show is meant to push the boundaries of television. However, if you're going to rest on your laurels, and bring nothing new to the table, you should at least do a damn good job of it. Rarely was any joke a surprise, or was there ever a truly laugh out loud moment.

It was not funny. This show does not deserve an 8.8 average rating.

After force-feeding myself a half-dozen episodes of "Friends," I was reminded of H.L. Mencken's observation that "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

This is one of the most contrived shows ever produced. I have to assume that the people who find this series so riveting only do so to live vicariously through the lives of the characters. Either that or they are immature yuppie wannabees whose sensibilities have been compromised by gamma rays. The effusiveness of most of the positive reviews made me want to throw up.

Friends" reeks of nauseating sexual innuendos that are spat out like projectiles from a tennis ball machine.

When it comes to dealing with sex, "Cheers", Frasier" and "Seinfeld" were far more clever, witty and intelligent. "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David wanted his show's humor to be based largely on real experiences. The show broke one barrier after another and either originated or popularized numerous expressions. "Seinfeld's" sexual humor was clever and original; on "Friends" it was on the same level as smut.

On "Cheers," Ted Danson as babe hound Sam Malone was far more endearing than any of the male characters on "Friends." The show never ran out of hilarious one-liners, which was quite a feat considering that the show didn't often venture outside the confines of a bar.

"Frasier" was both cerebral and jocular (how many TV shows make references to the Algonquin Round Table?) Kelsey Grammar's Frasier Crane was sidesplitting as he pursued one failed relationship after another, but he never descended to the low-level sexual innuendos that were characteristic of "Friends."

Unlike evergreens such as the "Dick Van Dyke Show," 20 years from now "Friends" will have been consigned to the dustbin of forgotten TV shows alongside "Meet Millie" and "Hey, Jeannie." We'll see.

Worst show ever. Tries too hard to be funny. Rachel character is annoying as hell

Honestly, if you ignore the laughtracks in the background, you'll get the cringiest and stupidest thing I've ever heard (yes, I count Trump's speeches as well). Jokes are either really bad, or downright insulting/damaging (example: Joey complains his girlfriend hits him, gets told he's a wuss = toxic masculinity at its finest). Not sure how can anyone enjoy it, but then again, America is weird, I mean the Kardashians are somehow famous there...

This show was labeled a comedy but it never made laugh even once.The premise of the show is that three women and three men are all best friends.The most unrealistic premise ever.For some reason they needed to have two stupid people and they were both in the entertainment industry.That's the only realistic thing about the show.Anyway, the majority of the show is about them all having sex with each other and drinking coffee.Except when they flashback to the 80's, which happens in about half of the episodes.They flashback so much because the characters are extremely boring and they need them to be different for the show to have any content.You get beaten over the head with "one of us was fat" and "one of us was a nerd".It's truly pathetic.This show is only for people who think Bill Cosby,Ellen,Rosie O'Donnell,Robin Williams,Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg are funny.Anyone who only likes real comedy will hate this waste of videotape.I would recommend never watching this.Trust me.

Friends is about 6 Friends who live in New York and have to solve all of life's problems to sex, to relationships, to... well... basically thats what its all about.

The idea contains the same old friendships, relationship, babies, love, marriage, job, and materialism. Nothing to contribute to society... never once I see the characters face real problems of debt, psychological torture, or identity crisis (Like Chandler experiencing what being Gay feels like for a day, or Rachel hanging with the poor. Or even Phoebe living in an asylum?) And about the racial cultures... Usually I never see them date anyone else other than a few colors to "liven" the space. Oh, the token black person that comes out one or two episodes is not helping either. Seeing as New York is full of culture, they made it look like the other races are not important.

Their lifestyle is perfect. They crapped money out of their really low-paying jobs and spend most of their time well, sipping their coffee, stalking about that hot guy or girl and plans to bang them later to the episode, ending with a break-up for the dumbest of reasons.

Aside from Chandler, their jobs are almost impossible to ask why their apartments costs more than what they earn. Well, Monica has "rent control" but hey... no one tried to kick her out yet... Ross is still controlling his money after all the divorces he has been in. Joey, Rachel, and Phoebe gave a speech on not taking charity, but hey, they suck the living breeches of the first three and claiming paying them back was almost impossible.

Okay, off with the plots, let's go to the characters...

Character analysis: Chandler - He is apparently one of the more humorous characters. He is a sample of a realistic person who we can hang out in the office or sip some coffee or something. I don't have problems with him and Monica together, to the dismay of all the true-blue Frendsian fans.

Phoebe - I like her for being a bit different in the first few seasons... but then after a while, she started being horny, annoying, and kind of a hypocrite. Okay, so she has a hard life... but people like her in real life, struggle to be as normal as possible. She just left that philosophy behind because of it. It's not even trying until the tenth season or so...

Monica - She isn't a funny character, but she has been a person who actually is believable in ways that she is right, and she is apparently the mature one. Sadly, she is usually looked down upon because her other Friends think that her style is annoying. Sadly, her baby-freak, "I can be like anyone else" philosophy threw me off after like season one. I always wondered why she wasn't kicked out of the circle.

Rachel - I hate her. She hasn't changed ever since day one, to be honest. Her personality is this "Me-Me-Me!" spoiled brat who went to the city, and a few jobs and a million boyfriends later... it's still all about "Me!" The relationship with her and Ross was somewhat annoying for and a mood killer for almost forever, and almost in the last episode of the series, BANG! They're together again. Can Ross just leave or slap Rachel for all the horrible things she has done to him? Oh Noooo... because Ross is too in "loooove" with Rachel... Reasons were almost to no idea... Having sexual thoughts with Chandler and almost having a short, useless hit-off with Joey was also not helping.

Ross - I pitied his first season philosophy and hey, I liked him for being at least sympathetic there... just that he had two additional divorces that he became a screaming, yelling, irritating person who is smart and intelligent, yet acts dumb and immature for his age. The whole Rachel thing is lost of chemistry and yeah, they were on a break. Rachel is apparently responsible for all of the things that happened to them and then claiming after the whole fiasco that the writers make it say that it's Ross' fault anyway for Rachel's doing. Ross would be better off on a suicide for being with a devil woman.

Joey - Dumb Actor who doesn't do anything to contribute to society. Oh yeah, his spin off may be the worst thing anyone has ever made... Even if I can feel things from the characters. He is a handsome guy, that's a contribution right? And Him having sex with 500 girls is considered a real good thing. In general, actors have to research their roles, and Joey... he just swoops in Shakespeare because hey... He's an actor!

To conclude, I have been annoyed by the show... and I get why people love it so much. It's the art of Escapism of them in a Fantasy world that makes everyone love them so. But sadly, I have watched shows that actually make use of real life as a humor tool that makes Friends forgettable for me. For ten years, nothing truly EVER happened.. and parodies like "Furends" are apparently more of a short version of the whole rant.

A 1 out of ten... Just because I can't give negative number rankings. :(

Grow up . Adults ain't this nice or friendly to each other ever .

The show is just extremely overrated. And they overuse the laugh track. You can get past the fact that it's a total unrealistic premise of living in New York in these huge apartments and having very little to no work, but the show in itself is just not funny. The jokes rarely land there's 1 or 2 episodes in the entire series that are pretty funny. Outside of that, it's very bland. The jokes are jokes your grandmother Would tell add a church function. I don't think this was funny, really past 1997. It should have been 3 seasons and done. How they went This long is beyond me. And I don't think they will hold up over the next 20 years..

I know lots of people won't agree or like this review however friends is really overrated and in funny. Without the fake laughs the show is dull and bland. Without them you won't know when to laugh because it isn't funny. The only thing I'll say is that it's better than the god awful show of the Big Bang theory.

Cannot believe this scores so highly on ImDb. The attempts at humour aren't even funny. Very bland show.

To me Friends is the most overrated show. The humor is weak and unintelligent, and the characters try too hard to be funny and act like everything is la-la land. Other than these major flaws, the show is just missing something else that many other comedy's have, and I think it's the lack of a good or serious plot along with humor. Other shows like Weeds and The United States of Tara are comical, but also have a strong plot and theme. I think the comedy in those shows makes it light in some ways and watchable, but also these shows are brilliant by highlighting individual people and society's problems. Even shows like Arrested Development and Grounded For Life apply more to the "good comedy but strong plot and theme."

And if the writer or director's goal was not to have a dramatic plot, then they should have some warm meaning to the show. For example, Full House, The Nanny, and Golden Girls had a lot of the humor but gave great messages. The importance of family support in Full House, how true friends will always help you in Golden Girls, and how a full-time care take for children can really help a family and bring out the best in children whose parents are absent such as The Nanny. I think Friends tries too much to be like a Seinfeld for teens and young adults. However, Seinfeld has much better writing and humor.

Every time I watched this show it always ended up boring me. I really don't understand why people like this show so much where there is so much better comedy television out there.

How do I hate "Friends"? Let me count the ways:

Firstly, it rated an "F" with the test audience (don't believe me, check The Smoking Gun).

Secondly, it ran 10 years without being remotely funny ONCE (beating the record held by the completely laugh-free 8 year run of Full House, which, like this crap, was produced by a division of the Time Warner media empire, had three males and three females in a completely unrealistic version of a major American city, bland-looking guy of Mediterranean descent trying to get into show business, and a dumb guy named Joey).

Third, that horrible theme makes NSync sound like The Beatles.

Fourth, the cast couldn't act its way out of a paper bag (I thank one of the other posters for pointing out that Jennifer "I'm not a star, I just sleep with them" Aniston is Telly Savalas's goddaughter. Her father is also on Days of Our Lives. Can you say nepotism, boys and girls?).

Fifth, the writers would eat up clichés like that last one I wrote as if they were brand new. And not only did they steal from the superior-by-default Seinfeld, they stole from Mr. Bean and even Punky Brewster! When Soleil Moon Frye, who really must have needed the money by that point, punched Chandler in the face, even that felt like a retread of a Punky episode where she punched Chad Allen in the face!

Sixth, how can they afford an apartment like that in New York? They hold menial jobs yet they look like they could be living at Southfork. On other, superior, actually FUNNY roommate shows like The Odd Couple, Three's Company, Kate & Allie, and the grand dame of them all, The Golden Girls, they seem to look they are either living with their means or cutting back to afford to pay rent. I've seen fewer logical leaps on Gilligan's Island.

What's worse is all the Emmies it got. Truly great shows like Bob Newhart's two classic sitcoms never won a single thing, yet this wins "Best" Comedy series. This show and Seinfeld (not a terrible show but an extremely overrated one as well) are the reason sitcoms are dead right now and will probably remain dead (the last time sitcoms were declared "dead" in the early 1980s was a golden age in comparison to today). As long as there continue to be reruns and DVD releases of classic, pre-1990s sitcoms such as I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Soap, Cheers, Family Ties, Newhart, The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Married With Children, Roseanne, pre-2000 Simpsons, and countless others like it then I say let it die.

This is truly the most vile, trite, unfunny, obnoxious television series of all time. I jumped for joy the day it was canceled, and I hope that future generations will see it for the garbage it truly is, because this one has been taken in by the snow job perpetrated by these hacks.

Having caught the odd episode, I've always considered this unwatchable drivel and avoided it. However a friend who's opinion I trust recently told me that the early seasons were much better, and since series 1 was available free on demand I decided to give it a go. I managed episode one and will never watch this again.

There was absolutely nothing funny or even vaguely amusing, and the laughter track just added to my irritation. The characters are stupid, petty and vindictive. In one scene one of the women destroys a watch belonging to a man who persuaded her to sleep with him by telling her he hadn't been able to make love since his last relationship ended some years before. I fail to see the humour.

So many people seem to love this, I just wish I could understand why.

1/10

Well, where do I start.

This television series (won't call it comedy) is the sorriest pile of rubbish I have ever seen. The funniest thing about this series is that it somehow is called a comedy. I can never see anything funny about it at all. The jokes are like those cheap ones you get out of Christmas crackers.

I don't know if it's the American humour but I know there are other American comedies out there that are a lot better than Friends.

They've taken a perfectly good song and ruined that too. When it plays up on the radio I feel physically sick.

The acting is soooo cheap and tacky. The attempted jokes are basic and flat. I think the writers need a good lesson in comedy. Here's a good list:- Only Fools & Horses, Fawlty Towers, Keeping Up Appearances, The Office, Alan Partirdge and the list goes on.

I think Friends is as enjoyable as having acid thrown into your face or maybe being strapped to a firework and sent miles up into the sky.

This is the worst show. Buntch of grown up acting like kids no humor nothing. Even Sesame Street has better humor and more adult than friends "Friends" may be the worst thing I've ever seen on television and I've been sitting in front of the tube observing Friends" simply does not stack up well to other, contemporary series. It lacks the smartness of "Seinfeld" and the wonderful self-ridicule of pomposity that is the hallmark of "Frasier". The characters in "Friends" seem designed to make them repellant dullards. This incestuous group of neighbors makes my flesh crawl.

The unintelligent show is completely without an edge of any sort. The characters are caricatures of caricatures and the writing is sophomoric -- though intentionally so. (It might be interesting to observe a writing session since the writers may have to slave to aim lower than their capabilities so as not to confuse the loyal friends of "Friends".)

I just don't understand why everybody makes such a fuss over this sit com. Sure it's funny sometimes, but it's all bad! We can start with the cast and the acting: IT'S LAME! Did those boys and girls ever take acting lessons? If so, they must have had some pretty lousy teachers, because non of them can act. It's just constant waving and hysterical screaming and yelling. The producers should have hired clowns instead. And the actors got payed for that? And so many awards! Such a waste of time and money...

And the plot. Does it say something? Well, yes, one thing - friends are very important and it's good to have them. And I totally agree. Sure, the atmosphere is warm and friendly, but there is nothing else they can tell. It's just sex, dating and stupid skeleton's coming out of Monica's stuffed closet.

Just lame.

Throughout this show's tenure and being in the age category that this show was supposed to appeal to, I could never understand why it was so popular. Re-watching one or two episodes in syndication years later, my opinion hasn't changed

Unfunny and forced humor, weak dialogue,awful acting, annoying characters, inane story lines -this show literally had it all. How did this unfunny drivel find an audience? This is probably the worst attempt at comedy I have ever seen and that's saying something Also the suspension of disbelief needed for the premise of this show to work is amazing. These people have jobs that would pay an average salary at best, yet they can afford to live in a plush Manhattan apartment. Give me a break. And notice the lack of African-Americans and other minorities on this show? In a multicultural melting point like New York? You'd think they were living in the segregated South during the 1940s rather than a modern, vibrant, culturally diverse city (To be fair, I'll give David Schwimmer credit where it's due because he seems to have been the sole cast/crew member who actually realized the stupidity of all this and to that extent he actually lobbied for the inclusion of an African-American character, leading to the casting of Aisha Tyler for at least a few episodes. But it's sad to think that he's the only one out of the whole cast and crew who didn't just blindly accept the absurd premise on which this show was based during its whole decade of existence) Ugh...to think this was on for almost a decade. Defies belief

okay i do not know were to start on this ever so dreadfully painful experience that is called friends. this is one reason we need ugly people on TV cause all you horny freaks cant get enough of Jenifer. the humor is so bad you cant help but change the station and that god awful theme song at the beginning for me thats were the show ends. all the characters do is sit around on a couch or diner and yap saying things that are not funny nor entertaining at all why is this show loved so goddamn much i don't know watch a good humorous show like Dave chapel he will make you laugh not this garbage want a real sitcom there family guy and family ties not this trash!

This show is one of the most overrated shows ever.

The acting is unrealistic yet not funny. You, as a viewer, can't take the show seriously, but it also does not have absurdistic humor in any form. That makes the show extremely uninteresting. Shows like The Office and Modern Family, that are also mainstream, also much more original, and are both more realistic and have more absurdistic humor.

They always play extremely safe with the jokes and they are all mediocre and cliché. The laughing track is really needed because without it it would not be clear which moments are supposed to be 'funny'.

Also, the atmosphere of the show is uninspiring, hypocritical, lame, low energy, lazy and arrogant in a typical New York liberal way.