'Friends' series served up emotional overdose with its overdue finale
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For 10 seasons, "Friends" reigned as the comfort-food show of network television. It went down last night like a big bowl of pabulum with a super-sized spoonful of sugar.
As any parent knows, that's a recipe for the jitters. The finale wasn't only jammed, it was downright hyperactive.
In true NBC fashion, the last episode began at 8:55 p.m., just early enough to steal some viewers from the last five minutes of "Survivor: All-Stars" on rival CBS.
The extra time also helped turn a half-hour series into an hour-plus cirque de so-long. Monica and Chandler became parents; Joey's new chick and duck were trapped in the foosball table; and Ross, with Phoebe's help, madly pursued Rachel en route to Paris.
It was a sign of how determined the writers were to hit us with their best shots that the birth of babies, usually a whole episode in TV tradition, took just five minutes.
The overall effect was of unnatural compression. The finale was preceded by a highlight special, and viewers may well have felt like they were being force-fed a dish of the show's most memorable moments — twice.
Even one of television's longest-awaited resolutions was dissipated by haste. "I don't wanna mess this up again," said Rachel. "We're done being stupid," said Ross. Ta-da! Where's Mr. Big and Carrie when you need them?
It was a greater shock seeing the famous apartment where all the "Friends" had lived at one time or another empty. Coming at the close, the camera's slow pan to the purple door and picture-framed peephole conveyed more feeling than a dozen group hugs, perhaps because viewers finally had room to reflect.
Still, none of that will matter to an event that long ago surpassed the usual proportions of a mere TV ending. As many as 50 million households were expected to tune in yesterday, guaranteeing "Friends" would go out on a very high Nielsen note.
Not bad for a show that received a mild reception from critics when it debuted in 1994. Unlike "Seinfeld," NBC's other big hit, "Friends" never drew raves from the press and had to settle for being merely popular.
The show's success was a bit bewildering because the situations often seemed ordinary and the characters not especially appealing. To some observers, Ross, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey and Chandler epitomized the self-absorbed Generation X.
But that was why it succeeded. In a narcissistic age when viewers often find themselves the most entrancing thing to watch on TV, likability has been replaced by relatability.
"Seinfeld" showed audiences would flock to a show about four mildly unpleasant people whose selfishness and petty venalities echoed real life. "Friends" proved 18- to 34-year-olds would be drawn to six mildly pleasant characters whose egotism and blithe ignorance of the outside world encapsulated the Gen-X experience.
For viewers, the attraction in both cases was not based on who was nicest. It was based on who reminded you most of people you knew.
"Friends" also was a supremely nonthreatening show. Unlike HBO's "Sex and the City," where stinging wit was used to pry open deeper emotions, "Friends" stuck to soap-opera sentiment and situational humor.
But it had other assets. The characters drove the story lines rather than the other way around. The writing was very funny in the early years. And by the time the writing waned, the acting talent more than made up for it.
Viewer loyalty also played a large part.
Still, "Friends" clearly exhausted its ability to entertain after Season 8. It wasn't just that the monumental story arc of Rachel and Ross had peaked, it was because no matter how much money the cast made, their hearts clearly had gone out of the work.
Moreover, the cheery self-absorption that rang true when the characters were in their late 20s and early 30s came to seem inappropriate as they had children and married (or vice-versa). Adolescence can only be frozen for so long, even in make-believe.
Last night, the growing disconnect between the characters' behavior and their ages seemed especially acute because of the commercials surrounding it.
Bud Light ran a spot that displayed a group of young people in a bar. It was a very "Friends"-like resemblance, had the "Friends" been a dozen years younger.
In contrast, commercials for Home Depot and Allstate, unthinkable in the old days, acknowledged how the show and audience were aging together.
That's probably the closest an episode of "Friends" ever got to tearing the emotional cocoon of its viewers — and a perfect time to set everyone free.
Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com