History YMMV / Friends

** The unnamed character played by Hugh Laurie flying to London next to Rachel in [[Series/{{House}} Dr. Gregory House from Princeton, NJ.]] By coincidence, the personality and dialogue are a ''super'' close match to Laurie's future character.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Monica's high-maintenance attitude as the show went on. As if her rough childhood wasn't already a burden on her, her five friends often eat her out of house and home while she's acting as both their mom and therapist. This trait persists even after she loses her job and is forced to take a degrading job she's overqualified for, and later, when several of the poorer friends find higher-paying jobs than hers. She then spends five years in a job that's not only high-stress but where she's persistently bullied by her coworkers because her honest and valid review got their old chef fired. Right when things turn around for her after marrying a great man and getting a job at a better restaurant she's respected at, life still finds a way to make things hard for her. Her husband is forced to move for work, keeping him away from home more than he stays. He then quits, leaving them in a financial hole for a good amount of time, all compounded by the stress of an even more stringent work environment. Things almost get better for her for good this time when her husband finally finds another job that pays well and keeps him home more often, only to learn they're both infertile. Just to dig the knife further, she often acts as a babysitter for her best friend's and brother's baby, who was conceived by accident in a one-night stand, having that reminder of what she can't have hanging over her head. With all this stress in her life, can you blame her for being so high-maintenance?

* CharacterPerceptionEvolution: When the show first premiered, Ross was usually perceived as a LovableNerd in a GiveGeeksAChance type relationship with Rachel. He is thought of by younger generations as far too much of a [[ClingyJealousGirl Clingy Jealous Guy]] and {{Manchild}} to actually be likable, and many find his OnAgainOffAgainRelationship with Rachel more toxic than romantic.

** In "The One After The Super Bowl", parents object to Phoebe singing rather truthful and unsubtle songs about everything from grandparents to sex and animals. In this era of drag queens telling children stories, it was probably quite tame by comparison.

** The greater rivalry is with Series/{{Seinfeld}}. "Seinfeld fan or Friends fan" was the [[Theatre/WestSideStory of the late 90s]]. Either you loved a show about nothing or a show about ''everything''.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: All the main characters except Chandler fall into this trope, with the worst anyone ever says about him is his homophobia which considering his homelife growing up is somewhat understandable especially since he is eventually shown reconciling with his father. In many of the cases, the broken bases involve liking the original characters and disliking the later, Flanderized versions, as the disliked traits in question become much more pronounced as time went on.

** Joey: A lovable KindheartedSimpleton who is still able to be charming and funny, or perverted moron who treats women as sexual conquests and is just plain TooDumbToLive.

** The entire Ross/Rachel relationship. Some love it for being a great WillTheyOrWontThey, OppositesAttract plot and believe it's an epic love story. Others think it's an unrealistic and unrewarding MasochismTango of two unsuited people who treat each other horribly. The split is probably highlighted by the younger, newer fans who, thanks to SeinfeldIsUnfunny, find WillTheyOrWontThey plots over-used in TV and the GiveGeeksAChance mantra cliché. The relationships also draws ire from Monica/Chandler fans, who find the 'Lobsters' reputation as the 'greatest couple ever' undeserving when the Mondler relationship lasted six times as long, worked better together and had a greater impact on the group dynamic.

* GrowingTheBeard: While the first season not considered bad, it had a lot of [[TheEighties 80s-ish styles and fashions]] [[EightiesHair (particularly in hairstyles)]], and was quite a bit more wholesome, family-friendly, and episodic than the other seasons, with some critics regarding it as an inferior clone of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''. It started to grow some stubble with "The One With All The Poker", the first episode to really show what it can do with its GenderEqualEnsemble by pitting Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe against Joey, Chandler, and Ross in a friendly game of poker. However, it dosen't really find its stride until the second season, after that [[TheNineties the styles and fashions match the proper decade much more]], the writing improves, it finds its own consistent humor and voice, the character's personalities begin to gel more, and there are more ongoing story arcs. It had also set itself apart from many other sitcoms of the time by ending most of their seasons in ''soap opera style'' cliffhangers, a trend that ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' soon followed. By the end of season two, it was already competing with ''Seinfeld'' as the ultimate sitcom of the 90s.

** Ross can also be this sometimes; in many of his relationships he becomes irrationally jealous and sometimes clingy (from being convinced Mark was pursuing Rachel, to thinking Emily will cheat on him with Susan because of [[LesYay how much fun she was having with Susan]]). As Monica actually points out, though, Ross was fine in relationships until his marriage with Carol ended by her discovering she was lesbian (and doing so by cheating on him with Susan, possibly repeatedly). Now he's just terrified that the same kind of thing will happen again. A lot of Ross's more {{Jerkass}} behavior also comes in the later seasons after he's had several humiliating experiences, both in his love life ("three divorces") and elsewhere.

* LessDisturbingInContext: Imagine someone channel hopping and finding "TOW Phoebe's Uterus" and not knowing or recognizing it and hearing Frank Jr. say "My sister's going to have my baby!" without realizing that he's talking about surrogacy not incest. [[LampshadeHanging Rachel evens says that she's going to miss watching Phoebe freak people out with that]].

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The climax to "The One Where Ross Finds Out" is set to a piece of music that sounds a lot like "With or Without You" by Music/{{U2}}. The producers originally wanted to use the song as they had twice before with [=Ross/Rachel=] scenes but couldn't get the rights cleared in time for the episode and were forced to use a soundalike.

* AssPull: Janine turning out to be a BitchInSheepsClothing in her last episode can come off really OutOfCharacter as she was never portrayed as such in previous episodes. It was done just because there needed to be a reason to suddenly end the Joey/Janine romance.

* CommonKnowledge: Chandler and Monica had no reason not to tell their friends they were dating. While the show didn't say it outright, they gave more than a few hints to very good reasons why they didn't tell the group outright. First of all, Ross and Rachel dated for a year, and their breakup nearly tore apart the group of friends. The second is how Monica dated Chandler's old roommate Kip, and when they broke up, he got phased out despite the best intentions to ensure that didn't happen. They didn't tell the friend group because they didn't want to cause a rift within the group if it didn't work out, which it was [[{{Fauxshadowing}} falsely foreshadowed]] it wouldn't work out.

* CommonKnowledge: Chandler and Monica had no reason not to tell their friends they were dating. While the show didn't say it outright, they gave more than a few hints to very good reasons why they didn't tell the group outright. First of all, Ross and Rachel dated for a year, and their breakup nearly tore apart the group of friends. The second is how Monica dated Chandler's old roommate Kip, and when they broke up, he got phased out despite the best intentions to ensure that didn't happen. They didn't tell the friend group because they didn't want to cause a rift within the group if it didn't work out, which it was [[Fauxshadowing falsely foreshadowed]] it wouldn't work out.

** Hugh Laurie (at the time very well-known in the UK for ''Series/ABitOfFryAndLaurie'' and ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'', but less known in the US) in the aforementioned plane scene.

* FandomRivalry: Unfortunately, the show is constantly mentioned in the same breath as ''Series/LivingSingle'' which, on the surface, seems like an easy comparison, but the only real similarity is just single working adults with sitcom shenanigans. Both shows widely depart in what material is covered and in the personalities of the protagonists. However, some of the rivalry got turned up to eleven when David Schwimmer proposed an all-black spinoff of ''Friends'' in a 2020 interview, Living Single fans quite angrily told him that there was one already (Schwimmer claimed he'd never heard of this show, but apologized for his ignorance nonetheless).

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While it is still regarded as funny, and a benchmark that other comedy sitcoms try to reach, the impact it had is largely forgotten after the slew of other shows that followed.

** Also from "The One After Vegas" is the moment when Joey breaks down the door to Monica's apartment. When it switches to the viewpoint within the apartment the moment Joey runs into the door, you can tell that the door wasn't actually within the hinges. It was placed several inches forward to easily fall over once Creator/MattLeBlanc bashes into it.

** A large portion of its international fanbase comes from it being used as a teaching tool to learn English.[[note]]So much so that Creator/AnaDeArmas joked during her [=SNL=] monologue that she, like most immigrants, learned English from watching it.[[/note] English teachers [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2019/aug/09/friends-taught-world-speak-english-jurgen-klopp recommend it]] because of the plethora of episodes that portray everyday situations and colloquial conversation.

** Amy is despised by the gang bar Rachel who only barely tolerates her for being utterly clueless, InnocentlyInsensitive, and constantly butting her nose into others' business. She's one of the most beloved recurring characters by the fandom and Creator/ChristinaApplegate even won a Primetime Emmy for her portrayal of her.

** ''Friends'' was very popular in the UK [[note]] although quite a few British fans took exception to "TOW Ross's Wedding" due to its stereotypical and patronising portrayal of [[BritainIsOnlyLondon Britain/London]][[/note]] - Creator/Channel4 [[AdoredByTheNetwork couldn't get enough of it]], to the point where it was joked that the ending of the show would potentially lead to Channel 4's demise. Even years after the show ended, Channel 4's digital channel E4 showed rerun episodes ''several times a day'', earning it the nickname "E-Friends" [[note]] since the channel lost the rights to the show in 2011, its content has become more varied although it seemingly attracts fewer viewers. Meanwhile, Creator/ComedyCentral continues to run the show ''endlessly''[[/note]]. The enduring popularity of ''Friends'' in the UK is the main reason for all of the following:

--->'''Monica''': By the way, I was just ''[[BlatantLies checking]]'' [[ADateWithRosiePalms the shower massager]].

*** Them convincing Ross to move past Rachel at the end of the first season, leading to him getting together with Julie [[UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo and Rachel pining for him]]. Then Joey basically urges ''Rachel'' to be the one to pursue Ross--Rachel explicitly asks "What about Julie?", obviously recognizing that she doesn't deserve be hurt, only for Joey to rather cruelly dismiss her--"What about her? He's been with a few weeks, but in love with you for years." It's entirely possible that Rachel would have forced herself to get over Ross and move on had it not been for Joey's encouragement.

*** Them convincing Ross to move past Rachel at the end of the first season, leading to him getting together with Julie [[UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo and Rachel pining for him]].

** George Stephanopoulos is a pretty dated reference point (back then, he was UsefulNotes/BillClinton's campaign advisor) but features heavily in a first-season episode (complete with him in the title). (Nowadays he's anchor at ABC News.)

*** In general, the show's negative portrayals of fat people (for another example, see the character of Girth in "The One After I Do") would today come across as both cruel and insensitive, now that we've become more aware of the psychological/emotional dangers of "fat shaming."