Chandler mentions that he's never had a conversation with Erica alone. Evidently, his memory must be bad because he was alone speaking to her when he convinced her (with that heartfelt speech) that he and Monica would make good parents (The One With the Birth Mother).

The last episode will be sold as a stand-alone DVD on 5/11/04; price is about $10

---Critique:
Not bad. As with the previous two episodes, it felt more in line with classic Friends quality. The jokes were pretty good, and I liked the character developments. A fine send-off for a beloved favorite series. And even though the resolution of the Rachel/Ross story was somewhat pre-ordained for years, I really liked the execution of it, a vast improvement from the previous episode. And the final scene? Perfect.

Bye, Friends. It’s been fun.

---Great Comeback:
(After Joey and Phoebe tell Ross that Erica went into labor…)
Phoebe: “And I have a definite feeling it’s gonna be a girl.”
Ross: “Phoebe, you were sure Ben was gonna be a girl.”
Phoebe: “Have you seen him throw a ball?”

Didn’t that ball make just a few too many sounds going down after Joey lifted up the table to find the chick?

Racing from JFK to Newark, Ross tells Phoebe that it doesn’t matter, because it’s an hour drive there. An hour?? I was in Italy recently from April 4th to May 4th, and my home in Jersey lies more or less between JFK and Newark. The non-rush hour drive to and from Newark Airport was about 40 minutes. A drive to and from Manhattan is typically 15 minutes. That’s about an hour there. The distance from Manhattan to JFK, therefore, would put it way over an hour.

Peter David, in his blog entry, here, pointed out that "not once, not a single time in all the back and forth, did either of them consider what would be best for their daughter. Ross never said that he wanted he and Rachel and Emma to be a family. Rachel gave no consideration to the difficulties of being a single mother raising a child in a foreign country with no support system (her sole focus was the money and opportunity the job offered.) They wanted what they wanted with no real consideration given to the other's needs except in the most transitory of ways."

Luigi, I agree with you about Emma. She seemed like a plot device that the writers didn't know what to do with.

My only major nit with the show is that, having taught college, Ross spent a little too much time at the coffee house to get tenure at a University.

I will miss this show. Overall, the quality of the writing, acting, and jokes has been consistent and good over the years. While the show may have been overhyped at the beginning, it came along at a good time for me. I was 27 when the show started, and I could definitely relate to the characters. At the risk of being a cliche, the show has been a good friend over the years. So long Friends, its been great!

How does everyone thins Joey will do by himself?

Luigi, one other thing - is this Peter David the same Peter David who has written so many great Star Trek and Babylon 5 books?

Yes, and the comment in blue is his, not mine (hence my formatting it in blue), which he posted in his blog, which you see if you follow that link. (I do agree with it somewhat, though.)

As for Joey, I think that on the one hand, it won't be of the same quality as Friends (or at the very least, have the same feel) if the supporting cast members aren't cast with the same magic as Friends was. Like Seinfeld, Friends had such a succesfully tight and synergistic ensemble that no one character was ever perceived as being dominant, at least in terms of contract and salary negotations. That type of magic is really hard to replicate. Frasier arguably did it, though it should be pointed out that both it and the parent show that spawned it had the same "dominant character-supporting characters" structure. Friends, on the other hand, had an ensemble of six equals, and from the looks of it, Joey apparently won't, as I believe Joey will be the main character. I also can't say much for the supporting characters I saw in previews, or the fluffy Hollywood setting, a far cry from the gritty Greenwich Village scene of Friends, but then, perhaps the finished product will bely the preview's appearance.
---In addition, I have other concerns, like the question of whether the writers burnt themselves out on the character during the ten years of Friends. The compartively low quality of the tenth season might suggest they had. There's also the question of whether Joey's "dumb guy" personality will have to be "smartened up" to be the star of his own show, and/or whether he'll have good enough "straight man" to provide balance the way Chandler did. Again, Frasier showed that a character can be expanded to serve his own show, but I wonder if what worked for the intellectual Frasier Crane will work for Mr. Tribiani.

Bottom line, Harvey, I'm skeptical, but not simply because of these problems, but because of the difficulty of creating a hit show in general, to say nothing of having lighting strike twice with a spinoff.

Luigi,

I think that you are correct in your assessment. Thanks for your thoughts.

Joey will definitely need a straight man. I do think that the other friends will probably drop in during sweeps, especially if the show starts to tank. I was a little surprised that they didn't at least set up the premise for Joey moving out to California, though.

I was thinking about Frasier as well. I didn't think it would do as well as it did, but I was obviously wrong. And, Matt LeBlanc said something to the effect in an interview once that audiences don't like seeing a favorite actor come back as another character - case in point, Watching Elle, Bob Patterson, and The Michael Richards Show.

Worse case scenario, Joey will be on at least 2 years out of respect for Friends. That and the fact that NBC doesn't have anything else for Thursday night. Don't be surprised if the other networks throw some heavy hitters against it - the inane Survivor will probably go up against it. (I HATE reality shows and can't wait for the trend to die).

What does everyone else think?

I think shows tank either because they're not very good, and/or because they can't find an audience (poor word of mouth or advertising, poor time slots, changing time slots, etc.).

As for reality shows, I love Survivor and The Apprentice.

Racing from JFK to Newark, Ross tells Phoebe that it doesn’t matter, because it’s an hour drive there. An hour?? - Luigi Novi

I think it could be done under the right circumstances- you could get across the Goethals Bridge (and into NJ) in about 35-40 minutes. It's not that far to Newark from there, at least to the exit, so I'm willing to cut them some slack on that one. But I did notice a geography based nit:

Phoebe and Ross are shown crossing the Queensboro Bridge in the scene with the quarters and there are a number of things about that bit that don't ring true. #1- the Queensboro is not a toll bridge. #2- Wouldn't it be better to go from Greenwitch Village to Brooklyn via the Battery Tunnel (which has a toll, btw) rather than having to go uptown first? #3- the scene implies that Phoebe was trying to toss the quarters into a collection basket, but those haven't been used for years.

Overall I thought the ep was good and that they didn't blow it. The themes of 'birth' and 'moving on' were handled nicely (the last bit of music on the soundtrack is called "Embryonic Journey"- nice touch). Plus there were some really good yuks- Chandler's bit about the Twins' medallion was my fave. I'll probably even watch this one again, which I can't say about certain other shows.

Great line

Joey (looking around the apartment after all the furniture has gone): Has it always been purple?

(Particularly funny for me because it's one of the things that UK spoofs of 'Friends' always picks up on).

I just realised the grammar in that last sentence made no sense whatsoever. Sorry.

'that UK spoofs of 'Friends' always pick up on'.

TRIVIA: According to imdb, the song playing when Ross and Rachel have their final on-screen kiss is the same song that played when they had their first kiss. I remember what the music from
The One Where Ross Finds Out(2.7), but I don't recall that music from this episode. Anyone?

TRIVIA: In the The Pilot(1.1), Chandler is the first person to speak when he is talking about his dream. In this finale, he is the last person to speak when he asks where they should go for coffee.

Interestingly, Joey's question of whether the walls have always been purple (I myself never noticed it until this episode, after which I noted it when watching repeats in syndication), is not the first time this fact has been explicitly noted in dialogue. After the girls lose the bet near the end of The One With The Embryos(4.12), Rachel, angry over having to give up the apartment, notes how much she loves the fact that the walls are purple. I never remembered that line until that episode was shown tonight.

Peter David raises a good point about poor Emma. Of course, we all knew that Rachel wasn't going anywhere. If the writers had not gotten Ross and Rachel back together, they would have had to go into the Witness Relocation Program to get away from furious fans!

So what did Rachel do, since she gave up the Paris job? Did she go back to Ralph Lauren? Or did she end up somewhere else?

Interesting that everyone ended up with someone (Ross and Rachel, Chandler and Monica, Phoebe and Mike) except Joey. He was the odd man out. I wonder if that is why he was put in that failed spin-off.

All in all, this was a nice way to say "The End". They lived happily ever after (except poor Joey).

Interesting that everyone ended up with someone (Ross and Rachel, Chandler and Monica, Phoebe and Mike) except Joey. He was the odd man out. I wonder if that is why he was put in that failed spin-off.

I'd imagine that it was the other way around. Joey getting a spinoff had been announced before the final episode of 'Friends' aired. For the other characters the writers were trying to give their stories closure, by having them settle down in committed relationships. Joey was headed off to LA to headline his own show about being a struggling actor, so you've got to have some GFs of the week and what not.

Poor Joey, his character made no progress at all.

What's so poor about that? Most, if not all, of the other characters got stupider as the series progressed.

I meant that the others moved forward, got married, charted new directions. Joey just stayed where he was.

You could say his subsequent move to L.A. was SOME progress, but character wise, he was the same guy he had been for the past decade. A character like that just can't carry a show, as the failure of the spin-off proved.

test

In this highly anti-climactic finale (but still not the worst one I've ever seen) Monica asks Ross he if remembered when he first came to New York and that he "tried to make it as a dancer". That was a funny line, as we did not think of Ross in that way, and he says "You know, we've gone ten years without that ever coming up."

However in the 5th season finale "The One In Vegas, Part 2", Ross mentions to Phoebe that the old lady getting a jackpot at the machine she was using before her is a lurker, and he knows about that because his Nana was one too (The one from "The One Where Nana Dies Twice"?) And then he adds that she used the cash to pay for his dance/karate lessons.

So, the fact that Ross had already mentioned earlier in the series that he had been dancing before is a small contradiction to what is said in the series finale, that's all. Not a real big deal, but I just thought I'd mention it.

From the front board:

"8/5/09
Due to his constant abuse of the Friends board (and the people who use it) I have been left no choice but to ban Andre The Aspie (Andre Reichenbacher) from these boards."

Andre, you are on probation. If you flare up on these pages and start being vitriolic against anyone then the ban will be enforced.

Thanks for letting me know, Rodney. Duly noted and understood.