Word: joey
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...other news, NBC announced "Joey," a spinoff of "Friends," and a fourth edition of "Law & Order...
...exception is "Joey," which NBC is so excited - and/or anxious - about that they screened the entire pilot, something NBC president Jeff Zucker said the network had only ever done for "The Cosby Show" and "The Golden Girls." (Both, I assume, were meant as flattering comparisons.) Why take such an extraordinary step? Because you want to create the impression that "Joey" - on which more paychecks than usual are riding - is itself extraordinary...
...sure, short of that step, that many people would be using "Joey" and "extraordinary" in the same sentence. But given NBC's track record with "Must-See Thursday" comedies - "Coupling," "Inside Schwartz," "Leap of Faith," "Stark Raving Mad," I'll stop for your sake - they'd settle for having "ordinary" in the same sentence. And often, the pilot is even, well, better than ordinary. If it was not like watching a great episode of "Friends," it was like watching a pretty good "Friends" subplot stretched out to a half-hour...
...Monica have a (relatively) happy set of parents. Phoebe's mom (not, we later learn, her biological mother) committed suicide, and her dad ran out. When Chandler was 9, his parents announced their divorce at Thanksgiving--Dad, it turned out, was a cross-dresser, played by Kathleen Turner. Joey discovered his father was having an affair. Rachel's mom left her dad, inspired by Rachel's jilting her fiance at the altar...
...characters are approaching something like traditional happy endings: Phoebe married, Chandler and Monica becoming parents, Ross and Rachel headed for whatever closure the writers have devised, Joey going west for the Valhalla of spin-off-dom. Still, what a weird route they took. Friends may not have been as artistically great as NBC says, but it may have been more important than the show itself seemed to believe. If, as the headlines keep screaming, the culture war is not over, for half an hour a week over 10 years, we were able to forget it existed. What else are friends...