I really like A Flock of Seagulls. They did 1.5 good albums (the first one and four tracks on the second). In the early 80s some groups were New Romantic and some were Futurist – history remembers the former movement and not the latter, it is now all remembered as New Romantic. You could tell A Flock of Seagulls (AFOS) were futurists by their hairstyles.
AFOS were more successful in the USA than in the UK (these days they are primarily remembered for Wishing (If I Has a Photograph of You) in the UK). They were part of the second British invasion of the US music charts and more revered overseas than home, like the Fixx and Wang Chung. AFOS were so famous that 15 years later it was a recognisable gag when Chandler Bing arrived for Thanksgiving in the flashback episode The One With All the Thanksgivings.
Everyone knows Friends – it is part of the cultural furniture. The next generation of our family have watched the show. Some of them were barely born when it ended.
In its day it was genuinely revolutionary. American mainstream sitcoms before this stayed in a status quo, so they could be shown in any order in syndication. Friends started with Ross’s unrequited love for Rachel and it was assumed that this would continue forever.
At the end of the first season Rachel finds out that Ross loves her, only for Ross to return with a new girlfriend from an archaeological dig in China. Yet in the second season Ross found out (The One Where Ross Finds Out); messes it up (The One With the List) and they finally get together (The One With the Prom Video). In the third season their relationship breaks down and after The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break and the traumatic One With the Morning After (a hard edged episode about infidelity for a sitcom). Yet nine episodes later it looks like it will all be better – the season ends with Ross having to choose between Rachel and Bonnie. Hell of a cliffhanger.
Luckily Sky had bought first run rights. Channel 4 was showing Friends months behind the USA (as was normal at the time). They continued with showing it six months later than Sky, but Sky subscribers saw it just weeks later. People at work were giddy with anticipation.
And it was a pile of crap. Ross and Rachel got back together and then split up as Rachel revealed a level of pettiness not seen before. That was the mark of the series after that. Characters were deformed and stretched into comedy plots, rather than the characters driving the stories. This reached its nadir in episodes like The One With Ross’s Sandwich, The One Where Paul’s the Man and the whole Joey and Rachel romance in seasons 9 & 10.
Friends after season 3 is not a bad sitcom, but it is not the show that smashes the mould early on. Jonn Elledge, great writer that he is, said the show should have ended after season 4 with Chandler and Monica taking over Central Perk. He was right. Obviously the cast made a fortune and the show was worth £120 million a year to Netflix. So artistic integrity means sod all compared to that.
For the record my favourite Friends episodes, in broadcast order (and all from the first three seasons), are:
The One with the East German Laundry Detergent
The One with the Boobies
The One where the Monkey Gets Away
The One with the Ick Factor
The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant
The One Where Ross Finds Out
The One with The Prom Video
The One where Ross and Rachel …. You Know
The One with Two Parties
The One with The Princess Leia Fantasy
The One with the Football
The One Without the Ski Trip
Early on In Friends it is clear that Ross, Chandler and Monica make good money and the other three are barely getting by in New York (The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant). Yet by the end of the series Rachel is a high-powered executive in fashion, Joey is a famous actor and Phoebe has married into a filthy rich family.
The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) was the next mega American series and actually ran 12 seasons. At the end of season 3 the status quo is upset when Sheldon meets Amy Fowler. The setup of four geeks who could not women turned into three out of four of them being married. Several female friends of mine have commented that Kaley Cuoco is “not all that”, but she is way out of Leonard’s league in terms of looks, ditto Bernadette and Howard. The only one of the boys not to be happily married is Raj – the only person of colour and, at the start of the series the only one who has any success with women. He does get Sarah Michelle Gellar as a date in the series finale.
(Bernadette, Howard, Raj, Penny, Sheldon, Leonard and Amy).
TBBT actually had three more good seasons after Amy arrived. I think the decline was marked in season 7, though fans tend to date it from Penny’s pixie haircut in season 8 (in real life Kaley Cuoco had divorced and had, stereotypically, changed her image). Just to add to the Friends comparison Bernadette becomes a very high paid executive at a drug company (which she had been studying for and working as a waitress to support herself). Penny does not become an actress, but becomes a hugely successful sales manager at the same firm. Is this the American Dream? US audiences cannot bear to see unsuccessful people? Raj’s failure to find love is the only sad note in a finale that finds Penny and Leonard expecting a baby and Amy and Sheldon winning a Nobel prize.
I first saw AFOS on the TV show The Tube doing Messages, Telecommunication and this one.
I Ran.
Five Miles Out 