What does a sleepy grown man do with a Netflix account and around 30 minutes to spare because his mother’s words to “never, ever sleep with wet hair” live immortal? An argument can be made for using a hair dryer after shower, sure, but I didn’t think of that at that time, honestly.
Instead, with my room lights off, hair damp and account logged on, I searched for a show not too short that it would finish before my hair dried, but not too long that I would sleep on it—the rare intersection between the most millennial problem and the most hackneyed belief, I know.
A few clicks landed me on Friends, the 10-year-long hit US TV comedy series that ran for roughly 25 minutes per episode. I only got to catch it sporadically on cable years ago but, before the diehards react violently, the show did crack me up each time. That night, on that very moment, I decided to see what I have been missing out on and watch the 1990s classic in chronological order.
My hair was well dry by the time the pilot episode ended but my spirit was too alive from all the show’s goodness for me to sleep. Before I knew it, I was binging beyond that night and into the days that followed, seizing every 30 minutes I could get to slip an episode in.
I’m currently at the tail end of Season 4 as of this writing (the last episode I saw was “The One Where You Stop Judging a New Fan”). My eyes still have a lot more of Friends to see, but I already understand the show’s lasting impact on both pop culture and its fans.
A friend told me she’s gone over the whole series three times. Another said he remembers watching the show on its original VHS collection. An online forum member said he texts his friend to randomly suggest a number, and he uses the suggestion to play the series’ corresponding episode number.
“Even after watching it for the nth,” he writes, “I always feel instantly better.”
Decades have passed but the show’s comedy lives on (except for a few dated lines, that is, such as when Chandler Bing on Season 2, aired in 1995, boasted that his “bad boy” of a computer came with 12 MB of RAM and 500 MB of hard drive).
What I find more striking about the show, however, isn’t the timelessness of its humor, but the realization that some present-day problems, no matter how heavy or grave, are nothing new.
Granted that the six main characters reflected their twentysomething target audience, including their realities, the show was already tackling issues such as the complexities and rewards of social relationships, parental pressure, finances or even coming to grips with the reality that the world is not kind, that it is cruel and real, demanding but also giving.
The fact that nearly 25 years have passed and the audience can still connect with the essence of the characters is a reassuring message that such obstacles are not exclusive to this day and age, but rather, a natural course that people just have to face at that particular point in their lives. Even the lines of the show’s theme song by The Rembrandts say as much:
“So no one told you life was gonna be this way/ Your job’s a joke, you’re broke/ Your love life’s D.O.A/ It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear/ When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month/ Or even your year, but/ I’ll be there for you”
In times of difficulties, remember that other people have already gone through that and even more have overcome. More important, always keep in mind Phoebe’s immortal words of wisdom: “Remember, it’s Moni-can, not Moni-can’t.”