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The King of Queens: Pilot (1998)
Good start
The casting was outstanding from the beginning, with Kevin James offering a revolving door of exposure throughout his series for hot young Jersey and New York comics on the rise. The script here sets up the premise well and gets Stiller into the perfect situation where he can be fussy and ruthlessly alienated but also endearing in a way only the genius of Jerry Stiller can pull off. Stiller is one of the great character actors still around after a very innovative career as a comedian with his talented wife. Extremely underrated show that serves as an excellent time capsule of suburban American life for middle class America in the prosperous late 90s.
Friends: The One Where Nana Dies Twice (1994)
The queer reality of mortality
Extremely rare for a sitcom to deal with the dark subject of death, yet Friends takes the subject on head first in its eighth episode. The original creators and writers of the show and the first two episodes are at the helm again, pushing the envelope with the common issues of buying a casket, setting up a funeral and cleaning out their house/apartment and force a family to confront the emotional and physical loss of a loved one and their own mortality. Chandler story line makes up the other part, with Perry once again being given space outside his friend network to feature his stellar acting and witty, comedic charm. Second appearance of Ross and Monica's parents, driving home the emotional impact of a lost loved one with a rather touching moment in the closet. The writers are already taking rather remarkable risks for 1990s network television.
Friends: The One with the Blackout (1994)
Just gets better and better
Cracking and fresh script by Astrof & Sikowitz that outdoes their first offering by leaps and bounds (The One with the Thumb). A highlight episode that moves the Rachel/Ross story ark further along with an excellent twist while giving Matthew Perry more excellent material to stretch out his outstanding range, with a narrative overdub of his thoughts to boot. The actors are settling into their characters and it shows, Matt Leblanc is particularly compelling in a subtle and rather well done method fashion, delivering a fine balance of straight and slapstick with sincerity. The show had already given new viewers three stellar episodes in just the first seven, most shows are lucky to have that many brilliant episodes in an entire season. Friends has really hits its stride in record time.
Friends: The One with the Butt (1994)
Show already pulsating in top form only a handful of episodes in
And just like that Friends is already pumping out solid and top notch episodes on a weekly basis with only five episodes behind them. It took Seinfeld 10-12 to really find itself. Remarkable achievement, especially with six leads vying for camera time, but it's helped out by yet another excellent script, this time by Adam Chase and Ira Ungerleider. Matthew Perry is given even more room to stretch out in this one and does a magnificent job coming off innocent and scornful, elated and dejected. It's easy to see why he would continue to be a feature actor in movies and other TV shows after the success of Friends. Swiss actress Sofia Milos, a German speaking and ethnically Greek vixen, plays the swinging, liberal and promiscuous Euro stereotype without a fuss and with panache. Friends has already hit its stride in record time.
Friends: The One with George Stephanopoulos (1994)
Transitional Episode
A transition episode written by Alexa Junge that relies mostly on one liners and pop culture inside jokes rather than plot, this one serves a solid purpose in sketching out the characters a bit more and giving the audience a bit more background on the life and relationship dynamic of Ross in particular before the pilot that makes his awkwardness and lack of self confidence seem endearing and warming to the female audience of the show. Neither of the story lines really come alive but do take note of the pizza boy, he's now an excellent and versatile lead and character actor on many a popular TV show in the last twenty years since this aired. Most likely this episode was written in isolation and given the to ahead weeks and months before the writer had any idea how her episode would fit into the overall story arch and that's why you see it lacking in cohesiveness with the previous episodes in forwarding the plot line. Given its circumstantial limitations, this one still has a few memorable comedic scenes, though ends on a ridiculously silly note.
Friends: The One with the East German Laundry Detergent (1994)
First great episode
The first truly great Friends episode, a fantastic piece of sitcom comedic writing by Jeff Greenstein and Jeff Strauss that isolates all six leads and puts them In duos, one in a restaurant, one a coffee shop and one a laundromat, and then takes bits of everyday urban life and three different points of relationships and cross pollinates them with wit and charm from the accomplice friend. Great bits here, including subtle jokes like Uberweiss. Hip and fresh writing combined with excellent acting and realistic sets. The episode that stated quite clearly that Friends wasn't going to be one and done like many new sitcoms every year on network TV.
Friends: The One with the Thumb (1994)
Show bulks up on writing and plot with less outside distractions
Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow are finally given material to stretch their characters out beyond the arena of the group ensemble and both put forth exceptional acting performances that give some layers to the show beyond Cox, Schwimmer and Anniston and indicate the writers are bulking up their characters with individual nuances and traits that would build to a crescendo in season three with their personalities fleshed out. Show really starts to gel from this point on with less focus on the outside and more on the inter-workings of the main characters and their relationships and how they impact the inner circle of friends. Astrof & Sikowitz flesh out a more youthful, less forced and more spontaneous script that flows more naturally than the first two scripts written by the show creators. Nice step forward for the show.
Friends: The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate (1994)
Dated Jokes but Enough Here to Land a Prime position behind Seinfeld
See a lot of people here giving this 10/10. That may be the way you feel emotionally about the series as a whole but this is no masterpiece of an episode by any means and doesn't stand up to the better writing and finer acting of the third, fourth and fifth seasons when the show was churning out solid and biting one liners with conviction and regularity. This episode feels rather contrived and forced. The acting is stiff, especially from Jennifer Anniston, and the story lacks any real grit beyond setting up punch lines for material that hasn't aged as well as Seinfeld and borders on soap opera pretensions at times. Farcical appearance of Anniston in a wedding dress showing up in a coffee house to see someone she hasn't seen in years and then imposing herself on them is a ridiculous premise and shows a lack of creativity by the writers to come up with a better, more natural script. Courtney Cox manages to save this episode by playing her character with subtlety and is given a good story line by the writers, the only interesting thing that goes on in the entire episode, giving the show its opportunity to speak freely about 20 something dating life and relationships in its aftermath. The first show on American network television to give a voice to a new generation of more open discussions of sex and coupling, but the episode itself is rather weak when compared to the broader body of work to come and other television shows of the past and future. Soap opera ending brilliantly brings in the girls en masse but comes off predictable but does showcase David Schwimmer as an underrated and smart actor when placed into uncomfortable situations. Le Blanc, Perry and Kudrow aren't given a lot of material beyond one liners in a group setting but show themselves to be versatile and solid character actors right off the bat. Casting found some excellent talents here.
Friends: The One with the Sonogram at the End (1994)
Step Up from Pilot
Tour de force of nuance acting for David Schwimmer. Plays the role of an awkward post graduate academic and lovable social buffoon struggling to come to terms with the "real- world" with an understated charm despite the weak acting of the girl playing Carol and a ridiculously silly lesbian story-line straight out of the writing of Seinfeld, but done with far less irony or wit and far more emphasis on setting up a soap opera like story ark for the entire season to fall back on for countless emasculating jokes about Ross. The one liners are much punchier and satirical here, delivered with a stronger gusto than the pilot, especially by Matthew Perry. Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles make a great appearance as semi-neurotic parents overly obsessed with their children finding a permanent relationship and having kids. Shows more extensive attention to editing and tighter, more compact writing than the Pilot and Jennifer Anniston makes a dramatic leap in improving the range of her acting chops in the extended period of time between shooting the pilot and this episode.