( WARNING : SPOILERS !!!! )
SEASON 1, EPISODE 1 “THE ONE WHERE MONICA GETS A ROOMMATE”
“The First One Was Only Average”
I never really saw Friends when it was on the air so I was only vaguely familiar with it—although I did manage to catch the odd episode and know the basics. The series is extremely well known and was the breakout series for the ensemble cast with a number of cameo appearances of some of the brightest and most popular stars of the era such as Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, and Tom Selleck.
For a pilot episode, “The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate” is decent enough. It has a number of funny lines and scenes but it suffers from the fact that it is trying to introduce the main cast of characters so it’s hard to showcase them all equally thus Ross and Rachel are the main focal point of the episode with both of them suffering from the loss of their relationships—Ross’s wife divorcing him and Rachel fleeing her impending nuptials.
It’s a little heavy handed and obvious that the writers are pushing us to understand that they’re the “destined couple”. But it’s just a 30 minute sitcom so it’s hard for them for them to develop an extensive storyline and likewise its not a very deep or dramatic one either for the pilot either.
Due to its brevity, its similarly hard to really accurately judge the main cast due to the shortness of their scenes. The ones with any real screen time is Ross (David Schwimmer); Rachel (Jennifer Aniston); and Monica (Courteney Cox) with the remainder of Chandler (Matthew Perry); Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow); and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) only having a few lines and scenes.
Kudrow and LeBlanc didn’t have much opportunity to showcase themselves but they did well enough to establish their personalities and characters. In comparison, Aniston and Cox could have been a bit better with their screen time as I thought they were overshadowed by Matthew Perry’s brief bits. He was the stand-out of the entire cast for the episode despite his relatively limited appearances thanks to his comedic timing in my opinion. He had a lot of charisma and sarcastic wit that I enjoyed.
The MVP for the episode though was Schwimmer for his performance in the episode. Even though Schwimmer’s incredibly morose “Hi,” at his intro was for comedic effect—I thought it wasn’t entirely wrong with LeBlanc’s response of “This guy says ‘hello,’ I want to kill myself,” wasn’t completely incorrect. I couldn’t help but feel immense sympathy for the awkward character just from a single introduction and his continued portrayal of his character of Ross was amusing and tender.
Overall, the entire cast did an adequate enough job and I have to admit that despite the succinctness of it all, they all demonstrated a great deal of chemistry in their limited scenes and interactions.
The plot for the pilot was relatively simple and straightforward enough. It is just a 30 minute comedy show so there’s little in the way of deep dramatics and an overabundance of witty one-liners and situations for them to exploit. “The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate” abruptly dumps spoiled rich-girl Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) into an already established group of close acquaintances with her being an old and distant friend to one of them. Rachel finds herself forced to abandon her former carefree lifestyle and adopt a more adult and mature outlook; and I think is probably the weakest part of the episode really.
The writers unfortunately have a very short amount of time to introduce the main cast and they were still had some rough edges. The jokes were decent enough but I feel the intro scene ran overlong and seemed forced with Perry’s monologue about his weird dream.
There is little in the way of any action sequences or special effects as its mainly a comedic sitcom taking place in the modern day—save for some minor physical comedy here and there but it’s all done well enough. Likewise, the sets and props looked well done and the shots looked professionally done enough that I didn’t spot any glaring mistakes either. Having seen quite a few future episodes, I haven’t noticed any major continuity errors either—the sets looked the pretty much the same from the pilot. The apartment and the coffee house have a warm, homey charm and inviting feel to them that you feel comfortable lounging around and relaxing. The music for the episode was good but pretty much forgettable except for the catchy theme song intro which I think everyone adores.
Friends Until the End
For a casual viewer, I’m going to admit that “Monica Gets a Roommate” is not the best of Friends. Mainly because it’s more of a setup for the forthcoming season and if someone were to see it; they probably wouldn’t guess that the series would go on to become one of the most iconic, acclaimed, and longest running TV sitcom series of all time.
Overall, it’s a solid pilot and episode—it introduces us to the main cast and the basics involving their lives and mishaps. It’s good enough that I’d say that it will convince the majority that it’s worth investing the time to see the next few episodes at least. The best and funniest bits are yet to come so I'd recommend to keep watching.
REPORT CARD
STORY / PLOT : B +
CHARACTERS / ACTORS : B +
CINEMATOGRAPHY / ANIMATION / SPECIAL EFFECTS : B
SOUND / MUSIC : A
OVERALL RATING : 3 and 1/2 STARS.
( SnowyMountain’s 5 STAR RATING SYSTEM NOTES / 3 STARS : Mediocre to Decent. This something that I think is average bordering on the cusp of keeping in your library for guilty rewatching pleasure. )