Fade In. Interior shot of a bar or an apartment. Sat around are a group of friends. They’re in their mid ’20s to early ’30s. Some might be related. Some might barely know each other. Some might be dating. They’re all together, however, and ready for some madcap hijinks as a group, probably with an animal involved somewhere. Which show am I talking about here? It’s pretty hard to tell these days as it’s a formula in sitcoms that seems as old as time.
Joseph Campbell in A Hero With A Thousand Faces laid out a formula that nearly every single story with an element of mythology can fall into; the monomyth, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” So while myths have an overarching template, so do sitcoms.
It’s one arguably pioneered by Seinfeld; old friends and neighbours hanging out in Jerry’s apartment getting into madcap hijinks in Chinese restaurants, open houses and laundrettes. Oh, and there’s always some problem with cats and dogs. Not to take away anything from Seinfeld, however, it was Friends that really cemented this formula as one that would crop up every pilot season. There have been more shows that have reflections of Friends than any other show. Happy Endings, New Girl, Rules of Engagement, How I Met Your Mother, Perfect Couples etc. They all share this post-Friends sitcom template. There’s nothing wrong with the template per se, but this oversaturation shows the lack of imagination in the writer’s room.
It’s hard to tell, however, whether it is really the fault of the writers or if it simply that Friends has done pretty much everything with the formula. Running for a full ten years between 1994 and 2004 with around 236 episodes to its name, it’s done everything. Introduced a monkey, brought in quirky side characters, hooked up and subsequently split up many of its primary characters (leading to one of the most memorable “will they, won’t theys” between Ross and Rachel since Cheers’s Sam and Diane) and put their characters in ridiculous flashback outfits, including Monica’s fat suit. New Girl has done pretty much every single one of these (the monkey one is a bit of a stretch, although in the episode “Models”, the models compare Jess to a cartoon monkey in a Russian advert for crackers). It’s this domination which really makes it difficult for shows to break out of the now tedious and monotonous formula.
But when a show that is focused on Formula F.R.I.E.N.D.S. breaks from this routine to do something different but in a similar vein, it becomes exciting. Skilled writers can take what could be another clone situation, and one which probably was designed that way initially to capture the success of Friends, and twist it into something truly unique and a joy to watch. Take Happy Endings, for instance. Its first season was disjointed and, at times, plain boring. The two leads, Dave and Alex (the latter of whom jilted the former at the alter), aren’t great comic actors, Elisha Cuthbert as Alex better known for playing Kim Bauer in 24, and the rest of the primary cast aren’t given chance to shine.
Yet, as the show progressed, it separated itself from the spectre of Friends by making their characters unique. Married couple Brad and Jane almost appear to be gender swapped, with Brad’s affinity for candles and Jane’s need to get “in with the boys” and Max is perhaps the best portrayal of a gay man in television; completely unstereotypical, he’s simply a regular guy that just prefers men to women, you know, like actual gay people not TV Land gay people. Each character carves their niche (with the writers finally getting to grips with how best to milk Alex and Dave) separate from their obvious Friends comparisons, with one episode even acknowledging that, previously, one member of the gang could be a Rachel and another a Joey.
It’s shows like Happy Endings and New Girl (the latter of which I haven’t talked much about, but will in my review of the new series next week) that bring hope that the curse of the Friends formula has finally been broken. Sure the formula does work, as we can tell by the success of Friends during its airing, but we really need to stop trying to create carbon copies and it is these shows that hint at executives finally doing this.
