Friends : Know what the writing of this show suffered from?

.Too many actions having the opposite reaction.

That doesn't just go for the characters on screen, but it goes for everybody. it goes for the writers who wrote this damn sitcom, the live-viewing audience, and the audience who comments an all these forums!

The outcome has all been too manyevery action has an opposite reaction.

Like an unintended consequence.

mmmm.yeah.

And that's why YOU wouldve done a better job I'm sure




**cArNiVaLs oF fAyGo**

Mediocrity? If not for the 3 hot chicks on the show, who would have watched it? No straight guys, that's for sure.

My vote history: http://us.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=9354248

Calm down they weren't that fit.

I'm hoping guys aren't as stupid as you are claiming. "Derrrr there's a perty girl let me stare."

-
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.

This is the board that will never, ever die.
Millions and millions of posts about this that and the other, mostly Toss and Rachel stuff, and Monica not being allowed to have her moment; not too many posts about Joey or Phoebe.

Where to start?
Well I could start from episode one with all the writers trying to convey a particular message to the audience and the audience sees a different message or missed the point entirely! I'll also cover all the forum-dwelling people on reddit, fanforum, imdb as well, that includes you and me, and our reactions or opposite reactions, but now to get down to it;

In Point Form, I'm going to single handed only point out in no particular order instances that held opposite reactions and not at all what the writers were going for, and instead of starting with the first episode and ending with the last episode, I'll abridge and make it just stuff that was life changing, such as

The marriage of Monica and Chandler

Toss and Rachel, beginning to end

Emma's birth

Boys vs girls episodes.

You get the idea.

Where to start?

"It's always been you Rach" -Toss Geller
No it hasn't. If Toss had eyes for Rachel and only Rachel, he would have been unable to get married the first time around and have a son. Also, Monica mentions Toss had many girlfriends in high school, all who cheated on him and he didn't really mind it. Because, weren't Toss's feelings for Rachel at their most intense back in high schoolwasn't that supposed to be a point where no one else would doand other girls didn't exist?

Plus, throughout the show, while dating and breaking up with each other as well as other people over and over again.

So, where to start how to begin.
This is a board that never dies.


And yet, not one single post anywhere about Chandler running out on Monica before the wedding. And for what? Because he listened to an answering machine recording that Monica made calling herself Mrs. Bing and Saying "The Bings?" What a flimsy excuse! Chandler knows that when you get married your wife takes her husband's last name, and that's the first thing they teach you about getting married, it's not just living together. He had already seen that coming, and already knew he and Monica would be referred to as "The Bings," and Monica alone would be called "Mrs. Bing."
Don't give me that well, Chandler didn't run out on her, they found him just in time.
No. He did run out, even if it was temporary and he came back to her. And Monica is considered selfish for just looking through binders of her favorite wedding items and accessoriesjust looking through a picture book is considered selfish, even though Monica did all the compromising for the weddinggiving up a beautiful dress for a very ugly one so Chandler could get his favorite band, getting married in a boring hotel auditorium instead of the marble museum she'd originally pickedit looked like a casual forgettable party as a result, food, casual dinning;
Long story short it was everything Chandler wanted, and nothing Monica wanted. She gave up her dream wedding, just for him, he almost runs out on her making him smoke a cigarette, which he knew Monica hated, and forcing Toss to make good on his promise and knock Chandler on his ass.

Boys vs girls episode:

The one with all the poker.

People act like Rachel forced Toss to lose at the end of the episode.
Toss has free will, and that's what he used when he made his own decision to let Rachel win the game. Rachel did not force, decide, demand or hold a gun to his head. He decided to let her win all on his own, with no prodding from anyonewell the closest we get to prodding, is Joey and Chandler briefly telling Toss to take her downbut the exchange before went like this:

-"Your money's mine Green"
-"Your fly is open Geller"

Just goes to show that when female characters change their minds at the last minute instead of the audience realizing that's so sweet and selfless, she cares more for him than herselfwhich by the way is what the writers were going for, the audience decides it's too late for female character redemption and "She's still a bitch for wanting those things in the first place" But when one of the guys, changes his mind at the last minute, it's still seen as sweet and selfless, even though Toss had been talking about taking Rachel's money since the start of the game! Oh, yeah and another thing, Rachel didn't have to tell Toss his zipper was undone. She could have let him spend the rest of the episode with his pants open and let him be embarrassed later-she did him a favor there. No Prompting.

Now let's take a look at the writers themselves, Kevin Bright, Marta Kaufman, and David Crane.
These three head writers are the ones in charge of coming up with storylines and making adjustments to episodes as seen as necessary. They're the ones, you could say are to blame for Meanwhile, Kevin Bright and David Crane are still working and going strong, and Marta Kaufman's career is over. I have no sympathy for her, she got just what she deserved. Not that I'd trust Bright or Crane with anything eitherI wouldn't want connections to that triono way.

All right, let's begin this thread.

Mostly, this thread deals with Toss And Rachel, Monica and Chandler.

How Toss and Rachel first got together.

Mostly, the writers didn't realize it, but they proved that it was much easier for Toss to get over Rachel any time he wanted, than it was for Rachel to get back into a relationship with Toss any time in seven years. When Toss is first introduced, he's depressed because his wife divorced himbut wait! How did he manage to get married in the first place, if he was supposed to only have eyes and feelings for Rachel Green? How did he manage to have girlfriends in high school and college? Spare me the GFS from high school don't count because they cheated on him, they were his GFS just the same. How did he manage to make out with Missy Goldman right under Chandler's nose when Rachel was in the same room and just a stone's throw away from him? So much for"It's always been you Rach."

How about, how did Toss and Rachel almost get together involving Julie?

Blame Chandler.
First of all, Chandler played both sides of the card whether he meant to or not. First he tells Toss that Rachel is a lost cause, and he should move on and find a relationship with someone else. He [Toss] was now friend-zoned.
Then, on Rachel's birthday, while Toss was in China, he was the one who spilled the beans about how much Toss loved her, at her birthday partyremember Rachel wasn't present when he told Toss to move onto someone else, and Toss wasn't present when Chandler told Rachel Toss loved her more than anything or anybody.

Blame Monica.
Monica got a little too excited after Rachel's birthday party when Rachel mentioned she'd be interested in starting something up with Toss. When Rachel was at the airport to get him, she mentions about how she's gonna go for it with Toss, and Phoebe yells-"Wow! This is HUGE!"

Rachel was in the middle of a date in the balcony, a date Monica lightly scolded her for having. > Just this, Toss and Rachel are not even dating yet, but Monica scolds Rachel for dating Carl, and yet, she is perfectly okay and too supportive when Toss comes all the way home with Julie? Brother or not, double standard right? Before that, when she, Phoebe and Monica were cleaning up and sipping coffee together Rachel was just lightly thinking about starting a relationship with Toss and sharing it with Phoebe and Monica. Whenever doubts started and Rachel thought dating Toss would strain the friendships and it would be like her dating all six of them, Monica scolded her. She even yelled "Why are you dumping my brother?"Before Rachel and Toss were boyfriend and girlfriend. Meanwhile on the balcony, Rachel can't help but see Toss everywhere she looks and ends the date abruptly. She rushes to the airport, trips falls, hits her head, talk about falling hard and falling fast for someone-just to see him with Julie. Here's the thing: Why did Monica not go to the airport? She could've gone instead of asking Rachel to go to the airport at gate 27 B, see if Monica went, she could have gone, asked Toss and Julie to sit in the waiting area, went to a pay phone and called Rachel, breaking the news to her gently, so Rachel could have had a chance to adjust and been let down easy.it's just being a little sensitive.

Meanwhile, the first act of hostility between her and the new girl actually, was made by Julie, not Rachel. Rachel was holding flowers and she'd just bonked her head. Yelling welcome to America as if she were deaf doesn't count as hostile, because she didn't know how much English Julie spoke. Anyway the flowersshe briefly offered them, held them out to Julie, but Julie refused them so Rachel used them to cover the blood on her forehead. Meanwhile, Rachel and Julie only had one scene together alone in the whole series, when they talk at central perk. After Julie leaves and is out of earshot, RachelJennifer Anniston then breaks the fourth wall and says "What a manipulative bitch" not to her face, but to the audience only, she never calls her any hostile names.


Toss and Rachel have to take a break and it was in the 1990's. The writers didn't expect this debate to go on and on for eternity. Enough said.

Marta Kaufman's behavior towards Helen Baxendale. People don't talk about it much, but it is appalling, what a bitch. She single handedly fired her just because she [Baxendale] got pregnant in real life. I sure hope Marta Kaufman has no children, as she is not the motherly nurturing sort.
I mean, I do feel some sympathy for her losing her own mother, but it was Marta's idea and hers alone to write in the stupid storyline about Phoebe believing her adoptive mother's soul resided in a common household cat.
She wrote it in because she was grieving and another thing, the episode with the cat takes place right after the episode with the jellyfish. In Jellyfish, Phoebe and the others learn that Phoebe's mother is in fact still alive, she lives in Soo Hoo New York. One of the friends should have reminded her at that point that her mother was in fact still alive, and it turned out the owners of the cat, lived in Soo Hoo. The writers obviously expected the audience to pick up on the crystal clear fact that the 6 friends just left Soo Hoo one day ago, and it was in the neighborhood where the cat's owners lived, that they could have visited Phoebe's mother one more time since, clearly Phoebe Buffay needed more time and you have to do what's best for everybody, but I digress. Back to Helen VS Marta. Helen's baby bumps were getting harder and harder to hide, when Marta found out she was pregnant, she was furious with her, like how dare Helen get pregnant on her [Marta's time] and some arguments broke out. Ironically, Helen was fast approaching the trimester where she would be unable to travel by airplane anymore anyways.

At the end of Toss' wedding you can actually the real life baby bump of Helen Baxendale's pregnancy when she turns around and smacks Toss right in the stomach.

Chandler and Monica. For real, this was originally supposed to be a one time thing, one night in London for the two, but the unexpected positive reaction of the live audience proved too much. After reshooting several times due to all the hooting and hollering, they then had to become a regular couple till the end of the series, and they had a positive fairy tale romance, that the three main writers were not expecting.

By the way, has anybody here on this board ever googled "Friends Confessions" online? What it is, a bunch of people have screenshots on their favorite scenes from their favorite episodes, and once you get past the three hundred something posts of people having a crush on Chandler, there's a big white word bubble in the center talking aboutwell this very subject: Opposite Reactions Than What The Writers Originally Went For.