I don’t have a total command of all the terms in the Nitpick Dictionary, but there should be a term to describe things that are nits, but are inapplicable to logic because they’re a given with silly sitcom moments. We could call them YBIAS nits. (Yeah, but it’s a sitcom.) YBIAS: We’re supposed to believe that when Ross bursts in to see Chandler, Monica and Phoebe leaning their heads up against the wall that his room shares with Chandler and Monica’s, that he doesn’t know what they’re doing, and believes Phoebe when she comes up with the lame excuse that they’re sad, and saying goodbye to the hotel.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Monica’s new hairdo during the episode, but I thought she looked really sexy at the end when she wore in it conjunction with that beret.

Luigi, I'm not a Friends fanatic, but I was made to watch this episode. Let me ask you a question: Did it look to you like the cast was just going through the motions? It did to me. These actors are getting too old to be playing a group of sex-obsessed twenty-somethings.

And another general comment: What suspense is there to a Joey-Rachel relationship when we all know they have to break up before the season ends so Joey can have his spinoff next year?

Did it look to you like the cast was just going through the motions? It did to me.
Luigi Novi: (shrugs.) Not in particular. Are the jokes as hilarious as in the first several seasons? I dunno. But they're adequately funny for me to watch, and I want to see how everything develops.

These actors are getting too old to be playing a group of sex-obsessed twenty-somethings.
Luigi Novi: They're not playing twenty-somethings. They're all in their early thirties now. Rachel turned thrity in The One Where They All Turn Thirty(7.14), and we saw the other five reminisce in flashback to when each of them did.

I also don't see them as sex-obssessed. Chandler and Monica are married now, Phoebe and Mike are now engaged, and Rachel, Joey, Ross and Charlie are dealing with trying to find the right relationship. Not one of the characters is currently single and/or looking merely for sex.

What suspense is there to a Joey-Rachel relationship when we all know they have to break up before the season ends so Joey can have his spinoff next year?
Luigi Novi: It's knowing how they break up, and how/whether Rachel and Ross finally get together permanently for the final time. Personally, I don't like the Joey-Rachel pairing any more than the Worf-Troi pairing in the final season of NextGen (even Matt LeBlanc himself said he wants to see Rachel and Ross end up together), but that's what all modern storytelling is: How it happens, rather than what happens.

Luigi: How it happens, rather than what happens.

Exactly! It's kind of like how my favorite episodes of Monk (I mean, I like ALL of them, but soem more than others) aren't the Whodunit, but the Howdunit epsiodes. Ooh, did I just invent a new phrase with Howdunit?

Thanks for the responses, Luigi. Sometimes I catch a show and realize that I just must not be in the target audience for it. Friends is one of those shows.

"Going through the motions" seems like a good way to put it. I should have thought of that myself.

Does Ross ever knock before he enters a room? He saw the gang listening at the wall by bursting in, and then of course, he does it again at the end when he catches Joey and Rachel. Maybe that's good, though. Keeps him in the loop.

Speaking of that wall- it appears as though Ross' room is next door to the wall- yet there is a door which leads into a corridor which Ross enters in. I don't think the room dimensions match up.