Friends 20th Anniversary

Friends is 20
Friends is 20
Friends is 20
It’s always bizarre to re-watch the pilot episode of a long-running television series, especially a situation comedy. Both ‘Friends’ and ‘ER’ are celebrating the 20th anniversaries of their debut over the next few days, but watching the ‘ER’ pilot almost feels like watching a movie. The pace of ‘ER’ came first and the characters were established later (we didn’t get to know too much about Noah Wyle’s John Carter, other than that he was new and that he was scared). ‘Friends’ didn’t have this luxury. The first scene of ‘Friends’ takes place in a coffee shop, so we really have no choice other than to meet these people. And the thing is, in this first episode, these people are kind of awful.