For years the networks have tried to re-create the success of mga kaibigan sa pamamagitan ng making pilot after pilot about beautiful twenty-somethings living together in New York. Beautiful twenty-somethings living in Los Angeles. Beautiful twenty-somethings investigating sexy child murders in Miami. This template never works, because executives refuse to realize that mga kaibigan was the exception, not the rule.
The first time I read this, I thought “this is so true.” The madami I looked at it, the madami I disagreed, at least on the implication that mga kaibigan in itself made everything else mediocre. Writers of the current sitcoms on telebisyon are doing this to themselves and their shows, Pagsulat them worse than Friends, and Pagsulat shows with less popularity, because they believe nothing can ever be as good.
Do I think that there will ever be a ipakita like mga kaibigan again? No. Nothing I watch (and this entire artikulo is talking of sitcoms only) holds a candle to Friends, and I doubt I’ll ever pag-ibig a ipakita as much again. It’s ruined me for anything new, anything old, and yes, even anything current. I don’t pag-ibig The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother any less, but mga kaibigan goes way beyond either of them. I think it is a standout, and, as the above quote says, an “exception” not a “rule”.
Note, however, that I sinabi “an” exception, and not “the” exception. It doesn’t have to be as much of a standout as it was and is. Writers nowadays, through either lack of attention to detail, lack of a realistic setup for their show, or something else entirely, are indirectly making mga kaibigan into something that stands so far above the rest the other shows have to climb on a dumi ng tao to look it in the eye.
I have a few simple ideas that can make sitcoms madami of what we saw in Friends. The following are some subtle, cheap changes than can and should be made to most of today’s sitcoms. They are the little things that I believe made mga kaibigan great.
So here, sitcom writers, are my suggestions.
1. Have a higher percentage of females in your cast.
mga kaibigan had three females and three males. Sitcoms nowadays about twenty-somethings are rarely equal. Until this season, The Big Bang Theory had one female to four males. How I Met Your Mother is slightly madami balanced with two females and three males. Rules of Engagement has four males to two females. Two and a Half Men has three main characters, none of which are female. The female characters are girlfriends of the two men (who rarely last long), the housekeeper, and the older mother. Guest characters and recurring cast rarely have the depth of the main cast, so one can safely state that Two and a Half Men has no developed female characters.
Now, I am not sexist. Nor am I feminist that believes that females hold the answer to all success. However, it is a fact that women are madami affectionate then men, and women are madami likely to publicly display that affection or intimacy with people they are close to.
I was on the girls’ swim team at my high school for four years, and I was a timer at all of the boys’ team’s tahanan competitions. In between their events some boys cheered the boys that didn’t sat apart from one another, staring blankly ahead while listening to their music. They wandered the deck with their headphones in. They went into the locker room.
The girls, on the other hand, aside from cheering, sat susunod to each other, shared iPod headphones, or curled up with two or three others on towels. They watched races while resting their heads on each other’s shoulders. They were generally madami affectionate, and I am sure this is why the school believes that the girls’ team is closer than the boys’. I’m not saying I believe that, guy friendships are displayed in different ways and I have no doubt that those boys are really good friends. But what is not seen is harder to believe sa pamamagitan ng the general public.
So, getting back to sitcoms, having madami females in the cast makes it easier (and sitcom writers like ease, that’s been proven time and time again) to ipakita close relationships. In Friends, the girls would hug the guys when they were upset about something, or they’d cover each other with a blanket if one fell asleep outside of a bedroom. They’d cry – and crying is a display of emotion if anything is – and they’d hug each other. They’d share their feelings. Guys rarely do that on sitcoms, and when it is done it is usually used for humor. If there is enough time in the ipakita to ipakita the guys’ laughable lamentations, then ipakita some of the female characters upset too, and don’t ask the mga aktres for cartoonish crying meant for laughs, ask them to make it look real. It’s easier for an audience to buy it with a female than a male, and it makes the people who watch the ipakita identify with the character(s).
And the females have to be the same age as the males. Mother figures don’t count for me. If it’s your friend pagganap that way, it’s not some related-by-blood mother thing going on. It’s a connection between friends, and that is special because a mother-daughter or mother-son connection is supposed to be there. Throw two walang tiyak na layunin people in the room (which is really what any first meeting is) and no one expects gold. So when we find it, we need to express it, because that’s the best way to ipakita it’s there.
I have nothing against men. But women need to be madami prominent in sitcoms. And yes, having a few that society deems attractive will probably help the ipakita get a segundo season, which is often needed to help it get on it’s feet and generate enough support to be renewed on interest alone.
2. Character growth is okay.
Look at Rachel Green. Pilot episode she’s a whiny daddy’s girl still using his credit cards and marrying so she could depend on someone else. sa pamamagitan ng running out on her wedding (“maybe I want to be a hat!”) we learn that deep down inside of her is someone who wants to be madami than that. There, right in the first episode, is the potential for growth. sa pamamagitan ng the end of the show, Rachel has gone from jobless, “trained for nothing”, and selfish to a mature woman who has had a career and is sought after in the most prestigious places in the world that her job is offered. She is a mother. She has begun to put other people first, and she goes from crying about fake telebisyon weddings to crying about the possibility of leaving her friends. Of course, the other characters grew, too. Joey learned what it was like to pag-ibig someone. Monica grew out of her dependency on her parent’s approval. Phoebe got relationship skills that allowed her to get into and keep a relationship ending in marriage. Chandler became “likely to take a wife,” and Ross grew up too, in madami subtle ways. But in my opinion, Rachel grew the most, and I think that is a large part of why people think she’s overrated. Most people, well, they pag-ibig her. And while they may listahan their reasons for it (some may be honest, some may lie) I think that unconsciously that’s what people are responding to – how she changed.
Now, let’s look at sitcoms today. I’m going to skip right over Two and a Half Men because the only character growth I see is Jake growing from a boy to a…(I really don’t want to say ‘man’ here)…an adult. Sure, there’s the Charlie/Rose thing, but even if Charlie would be back on the ipakita susunod year, him realizing he wants to be with her is one thing, and as she’s been around from the start, it’s nothing new or even surprising.
How I Met Your Mother has some growth. Barney or Robin is the most notable, with both of them warming to the idea of relationships. Knowing Barney will one araw marry is big. Ted is changing too, into the person the mother can one araw fall in pag-ibig with. So How I Met Your Mother has the character growth we need.
Rules of Engagement has little growth. Russell is still a ladies’ man. Adam and Jen are still engaged. Timmy went from a respectful man to being insanely horny. Audrey and Jeff are unchanged. And I bet some people wonder why it only gets a half season and is now airing Saturday nights in front of reruns.
The Big Bang Theory is all over the place. We get character growth in single episodes, and then it’s gone. Raj still cannot talk to women, Leonard is still suffering from the treatment his mother gave him, and Sheldon, while some would argue differently, is virtually unchanged. He will do things he hasn’t yet done, such as buying presents or going to the hospital, but his reasoning for doing them is the same old, same old thing he has always done. Howard has probably changed the most, going from a creepy womanizer to an engaged man.
Then, there is Penny. Although people can argue differently, (and I bet the writers of this ipakita would) Penny is supposed to be Rachel. She leaves the safety of her family and gets involved with another group of people who become her friends. She can’t get a good job and so waitresses. She is the female half of an on and off relationship. She can be insecure. She is supposed to be this decade’s Rachel Green, and what I believe is what made people connect with and pag-ibig Rachel is exactly what Penny is lacking.
Four seasons in, Penny is having drunken hookups, same as she “has always done” (according to a writer himself). Her career has not improved. Her dreams of being an actress have been virtually abandoned, and she has made people dislike her in surprising numbers. Sure, she has bonded with the group that welcomed her in, but let’s face it, it’s not surprising that she likes being with men who don’t treat her like her muscle-bound exes did. I personally do not agree with Kaley Cuoco when she says “(Penny) would lie down on the tracks for these guys.” I’m sorry, I’d pag-ibig to believe that, but I don’t. I know people who have stopped watching because of what Penny has become.
So the segundo big thing that mga kaibigan had – growth. How I Met Your Mother has it, too, and that show’s numbers would have it be a big hit anywhere other than CBS. But people want to grow, people want to realize their dreams, or realize what they wanted all their lives is what they have now. mga kaibigan did that.
3. Give the characters lots of past. Make a few related to each other.
One of the things I loved about mga kaibigan is how most of them had at least run into one another prior to becoming close. Phoebe had mugged Ross as a teenager. Chandler was Ross’ college room mate, so he knew Monica and Rachel vaguely. Three of the six had gone to the same schools, so incidents could be recalled years later with the “that was you!?” type conversations that we saw often. Their lives were intertwined before they were friends, giving them and the audience a sort of tie that showed that they belonged together as a group.
Another great thing was having Monica and Ross be related. That did a lot to help eliminate the female-male barrier that every ipakita faces. Whenever a male and female character have any sort of chemistry at all, there are always fans that want them to get together as a romantic couple. I always argue that not all chemistry is romantic, and this, the brother/sister relationship, is a convenient (and let’s be honest, creative; not many shows have siblings in the cast) way to ipakita female/male closeness without legions of fans shouting out for them to get together. Once we have Monicas and Rosses in sitcoms, it’s easier for the writers to have other male/female relationships that are not seen solely as potential for romance, since a ibingiay “no no” is already there. Now, putting a male-female sibling dynamic into a ipakita will rarely happen because of course people will say, and rightly so, that it is very similar to what mga kaibigan did. But don’t think of it as “copying Friends.” Think of it as “doing what works.”
4. Put some subtle additions in the script that shows the character’s chemistry or just the plain fact that these people like each other. And do it in madami than a few episodes.
There are many scenes that ipakita Monica (and Phoebe and Rachel on occasion) with their feet up on the coffee table, and their lower legs casually crossing over someone else’s. It’s subtle. It may not register in the audience’s mind (or the majority, anyway) that their legs are resting on someone else’s, but it will be there in the unconscious mind. In The Big Bang Theory, when there was an episode that had two of the female characters share a chair, fans got excited, and they had a right to be. It was a subtle, unspoken sign of friendship and being comfortable that we hardly ever see in sitcoms today. If people shared a chair on Friends, it was an every araw thing. No one got excited because that’s what they did. Sure, I notice it now, but I grew up with the sort of stuff on telebisyon today, which don't take me wrong, is great for today, but ah, the past.
How hard is it, for writers of sitcoms, to make notations in the script “so-and-so turns and smiles at so-and-so.” “So-and-so smirks at so-and-so.” “So-and-so squeezes so-and-so’s arm gently.” “So-and-so and So-and-so hug in excitement/celebration, etc”. Now, both How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory does do this, but again, mga kaibigan had it much madami frequently, so it wasn’t quite as noticeable. Well, maybe noticeable is the wrong word. How about notable? If it’s a moment of “Oh my gosh look at that grin!” in modern araw shows, it’s just as noticeable all the times it’s not there.
5. Give genuine makeups/apologies after arguments. Don’t conveniently end the episode.
I pag-ibig when Monica and Rachel fight. Why? Because I know that there will always be a sweet friendship/sisterly moment at the end. Same for Chandler/Joey and all the other dynamics. They always, without fail, realize what they mean to each other, and it’s shown in a way that leaves people with no doubts.
Two and a Half Men’s apologies/makeups always feel fake to me, and that may be because often the person was faking it for their own convenience. How I Met Your Mother does a pretty good job at this, and The Big Bang Theory wraps up it’s storylines in pretty convenient ways sometimes (Sheldon and Penny both get sick, or Mary intervenes for Leonard/Howard/Raj’s mistakes, etc) and sometimes drops the issue altogether, although on occasion a proper makeup is shown. But mga kaibigan doesn’t fix it “on occasion.” mga kaibigan didn’t do a “pretty good job.” mga kaibigan never felt “fake”. It was genuine and sweet, one hundred percent of the time.
When there was a fight on Friends, I always knew it was going to resolve itself and leave me loving the characters more. When there is a fight on The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother, I dread pagbaba reviews/forum posts on how awfully it was written or how terrible a character behaved.
So in short, it’s very simple.
Now that you’ve read this huge artikulo on what stands mga kaibigan apart, I’m going to sum it up with one simple sentence.
Put puso in your sitcom.
If we can believe that these characters care for one another, if we believe that these characters, at least for twenty-two minutos at a time, are real, we are going to keep tuning in, keep laughing with them, and keep rooting for them. With mga kaibigan I rarely, if ever, see comments like “the writers made Emily a bitch,” or “the writers caused Monica to fall in pag-ibig with Chandler.” I see comments that say “Emily is a bitch,” or “Monica fell in pag-ibig with Chandler.” And it’s phrased that way because there was puso within the funny, pag-ibig at the core of each storyline, and the characters were loveable, redeemable, and genuine enough for people to believe, while watching, that they were real people to be loved and entertained by.
In Conclusion
I agree with the quote in the fact that nothing has been or ever will be like Friends. mga kaibigan is and always will be in a class sa pamamagitan ng itself, no matter what the comparison is.
A ipakita is truly special that makes most people cry when they watch the series finale. It’s special when each taon fans hope for a reunion episode. mga kaibigan is a ipakita that was so popular and important that, in a Horrible Bosses artikulo written seven years after the show’s conclusion, there was a sentence that sinabi “It will be strange to see Rachel (not Jen Aniston, Rachel) in the role of such a terrible woman.” It’s special enough that Ellen DeGeneres greets Matt LeBlanc with “how you doin’?” the same number of years later. It’s special enough that the tanong that most wanted answered in a Jen Aniston interview just a few weeks nakaraan was “are you still mga kaibigan with the Friends?”
mga kaibigan was definitely special.
mga kaibigan will always be an exception.
But it doesn’t have to be the only one. It doesn't have to be that far above the rest. mga kaibigan had it’s share of annoying characters, weak episodes, and bad or cheap jokes. Without the pag-ibig and closeness, it is very similar to what is on telebisyon today.
So, sitcom writers, here is my advice. Take what you have, and just add heart. Clearly, that works.
The first time I read this, I thought “this is so true.” The madami I looked at it, the madami I disagreed, at least on the implication that mga kaibigan in itself made everything else mediocre. Writers of the current sitcoms on telebisyon are doing this to themselves and their shows, Pagsulat them worse than Friends, and Pagsulat shows with less popularity, because they believe nothing can ever be as good.
Do I think that there will ever be a ipakita like mga kaibigan again? No. Nothing I watch (and this entire artikulo is talking of sitcoms only) holds a candle to Friends, and I doubt I’ll ever pag-ibig a ipakita as much again. It’s ruined me for anything new, anything old, and yes, even anything current. I don’t pag-ibig The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother any less, but mga kaibigan goes way beyond either of them. I think it is a standout, and, as the above quote says, an “exception” not a “rule”.
Note, however, that I sinabi “an” exception, and not “the” exception. It doesn’t have to be as much of a standout as it was and is. Writers nowadays, through either lack of attention to detail, lack of a realistic setup for their show, or something else entirely, are indirectly making mga kaibigan into something that stands so far above the rest the other shows have to climb on a dumi ng tao to look it in the eye.
I have a few simple ideas that can make sitcoms madami of what we saw in Friends. The following are some subtle, cheap changes than can and should be made to most of today’s sitcoms. They are the little things that I believe made mga kaibigan great.
So here, sitcom writers, are my suggestions.
1. Have a higher percentage of females in your cast.
mga kaibigan had three females and three males. Sitcoms nowadays about twenty-somethings are rarely equal. Until this season, The Big Bang Theory had one female to four males. How I Met Your Mother is slightly madami balanced with two females and three males. Rules of Engagement has four males to two females. Two and a Half Men has three main characters, none of which are female. The female characters are girlfriends of the two men (who rarely last long), the housekeeper, and the older mother. Guest characters and recurring cast rarely have the depth of the main cast, so one can safely state that Two and a Half Men has no developed female characters.
Now, I am not sexist. Nor am I feminist that believes that females hold the answer to all success. However, it is a fact that women are madami affectionate then men, and women are madami likely to publicly display that affection or intimacy with people they are close to.
I was on the girls’ swim team at my high school for four years, and I was a timer at all of the boys’ team’s tahanan competitions. In between their events some boys cheered the boys that didn’t sat apart from one another, staring blankly ahead while listening to their music. They wandered the deck with their headphones in. They went into the locker room.
The girls, on the other hand, aside from cheering, sat susunod to each other, shared iPod headphones, or curled up with two or three others on towels. They watched races while resting their heads on each other’s shoulders. They were generally madami affectionate, and I am sure this is why the school believes that the girls’ team is closer than the boys’. I’m not saying I believe that, guy friendships are displayed in different ways and I have no doubt that those boys are really good friends. But what is not seen is harder to believe sa pamamagitan ng the general public.
So, getting back to sitcoms, having madami females in the cast makes it easier (and sitcom writers like ease, that’s been proven time and time again) to ipakita close relationships. In Friends, the girls would hug the guys when they were upset about something, or they’d cover each other with a blanket if one fell asleep outside of a bedroom. They’d cry – and crying is a display of emotion if anything is – and they’d hug each other. They’d share their feelings. Guys rarely do that on sitcoms, and when it is done it is usually used for humor. If there is enough time in the ipakita to ipakita the guys’ laughable lamentations, then ipakita some of the female characters upset too, and don’t ask the mga aktres for cartoonish crying meant for laughs, ask them to make it look real. It’s easier for an audience to buy it with a female than a male, and it makes the people who watch the ipakita identify with the character(s).
And the females have to be the same age as the males. Mother figures don’t count for me. If it’s your friend pagganap that way, it’s not some related-by-blood mother thing going on. It’s a connection between friends, and that is special because a mother-daughter or mother-son connection is supposed to be there. Throw two walang tiyak na layunin people in the room (which is really what any first meeting is) and no one expects gold. So when we find it, we need to express it, because that’s the best way to ipakita it’s there.
I have nothing against men. But women need to be madami prominent in sitcoms. And yes, having a few that society deems attractive will probably help the ipakita get a segundo season, which is often needed to help it get on it’s feet and generate enough support to be renewed on interest alone.
2. Character growth is okay.
Look at Rachel Green. Pilot episode she’s a whiny daddy’s girl still using his credit cards and marrying so she could depend on someone else. sa pamamagitan ng running out on her wedding (“maybe I want to be a hat!”) we learn that deep down inside of her is someone who wants to be madami than that. There, right in the first episode, is the potential for growth. sa pamamagitan ng the end of the show, Rachel has gone from jobless, “trained for nothing”, and selfish to a mature woman who has had a career and is sought after in the most prestigious places in the world that her job is offered. She is a mother. She has begun to put other people first, and she goes from crying about fake telebisyon weddings to crying about the possibility of leaving her friends. Of course, the other characters grew, too. Joey learned what it was like to pag-ibig someone. Monica grew out of her dependency on her parent’s approval. Phoebe got relationship skills that allowed her to get into and keep a relationship ending in marriage. Chandler became “likely to take a wife,” and Ross grew up too, in madami subtle ways. But in my opinion, Rachel grew the most, and I think that is a large part of why people think she’s overrated. Most people, well, they pag-ibig her. And while they may listahan their reasons for it (some may be honest, some may lie) I think that unconsciously that’s what people are responding to – how she changed.
Now, let’s look at sitcoms today. I’m going to skip right over Two and a Half Men because the only character growth I see is Jake growing from a boy to a…(I really don’t want to say ‘man’ here)…an adult. Sure, there’s the Charlie/Rose thing, but even if Charlie would be back on the ipakita susunod year, him realizing he wants to be with her is one thing, and as she’s been around from the start, it’s nothing new or even surprising.
How I Met Your Mother has some growth. Barney or Robin is the most notable, with both of them warming to the idea of relationships. Knowing Barney will one araw marry is big. Ted is changing too, into the person the mother can one araw fall in pag-ibig with. So How I Met Your Mother has the character growth we need.
Rules of Engagement has little growth. Russell is still a ladies’ man. Adam and Jen are still engaged. Timmy went from a respectful man to being insanely horny. Audrey and Jeff are unchanged. And I bet some people wonder why it only gets a half season and is now airing Saturday nights in front of reruns.
The Big Bang Theory is all over the place. We get character growth in single episodes, and then it’s gone. Raj still cannot talk to women, Leonard is still suffering from the treatment his mother gave him, and Sheldon, while some would argue differently, is virtually unchanged. He will do things he hasn’t yet done, such as buying presents or going to the hospital, but his reasoning for doing them is the same old, same old thing he has always done. Howard has probably changed the most, going from a creepy womanizer to an engaged man.
Then, there is Penny. Although people can argue differently, (and I bet the writers of this ipakita would) Penny is supposed to be Rachel. She leaves the safety of her family and gets involved with another group of people who become her friends. She can’t get a good job and so waitresses. She is the female half of an on and off relationship. She can be insecure. She is supposed to be this decade’s Rachel Green, and what I believe is what made people connect with and pag-ibig Rachel is exactly what Penny is lacking.
Four seasons in, Penny is having drunken hookups, same as she “has always done” (according to a writer himself). Her career has not improved. Her dreams of being an actress have been virtually abandoned, and she has made people dislike her in surprising numbers. Sure, she has bonded with the group that welcomed her in, but let’s face it, it’s not surprising that she likes being with men who don’t treat her like her muscle-bound exes did. I personally do not agree with Kaley Cuoco when she says “(Penny) would lie down on the tracks for these guys.” I’m sorry, I’d pag-ibig to believe that, but I don’t. I know people who have stopped watching because of what Penny has become.
So the segundo big thing that mga kaibigan had – growth. How I Met Your Mother has it, too, and that show’s numbers would have it be a big hit anywhere other than CBS. But people want to grow, people want to realize their dreams, or realize what they wanted all their lives is what they have now. mga kaibigan did that.
3. Give the characters lots of past. Make a few related to each other.
One of the things I loved about mga kaibigan is how most of them had at least run into one another prior to becoming close. Phoebe had mugged Ross as a teenager. Chandler was Ross’ college room mate, so he knew Monica and Rachel vaguely. Three of the six had gone to the same schools, so incidents could be recalled years later with the “that was you!?” type conversations that we saw often. Their lives were intertwined before they were friends, giving them and the audience a sort of tie that showed that they belonged together as a group.
Another great thing was having Monica and Ross be related. That did a lot to help eliminate the female-male barrier that every ipakita faces. Whenever a male and female character have any sort of chemistry at all, there are always fans that want them to get together as a romantic couple. I always argue that not all chemistry is romantic, and this, the brother/sister relationship, is a convenient (and let’s be honest, creative; not many shows have siblings in the cast) way to ipakita female/male closeness without legions of fans shouting out for them to get together. Once we have Monicas and Rosses in sitcoms, it’s easier for the writers to have other male/female relationships that are not seen solely as potential for romance, since a ibingiay “no no” is already there. Now, putting a male-female sibling dynamic into a ipakita will rarely happen because of course people will say, and rightly so, that it is very similar to what mga kaibigan did. But don’t think of it as “copying Friends.” Think of it as “doing what works.”
4. Put some subtle additions in the script that shows the character’s chemistry or just the plain fact that these people like each other. And do it in madami than a few episodes.
There are many scenes that ipakita Monica (and Phoebe and Rachel on occasion) with their feet up on the coffee table, and their lower legs casually crossing over someone else’s. It’s subtle. It may not register in the audience’s mind (or the majority, anyway) that their legs are resting on someone else’s, but it will be there in the unconscious mind. In The Big Bang Theory, when there was an episode that had two of the female characters share a chair, fans got excited, and they had a right to be. It was a subtle, unspoken sign of friendship and being comfortable that we hardly ever see in sitcoms today. If people shared a chair on Friends, it was an every araw thing. No one got excited because that’s what they did. Sure, I notice it now, but I grew up with the sort of stuff on telebisyon today, which don't take me wrong, is great for today, but ah, the past.
How hard is it, for writers of sitcoms, to make notations in the script “so-and-so turns and smiles at so-and-so.” “So-and-so smirks at so-and-so.” “So-and-so squeezes so-and-so’s arm gently.” “So-and-so and So-and-so hug in excitement/celebration, etc”. Now, both How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory does do this, but again, mga kaibigan had it much madami frequently, so it wasn’t quite as noticeable. Well, maybe noticeable is the wrong word. How about notable? If it’s a moment of “Oh my gosh look at that grin!” in modern araw shows, it’s just as noticeable all the times it’s not there.
5. Give genuine makeups/apologies after arguments. Don’t conveniently end the episode.
I pag-ibig when Monica and Rachel fight. Why? Because I know that there will always be a sweet friendship/sisterly moment at the end. Same for Chandler/Joey and all the other dynamics. They always, without fail, realize what they mean to each other, and it’s shown in a way that leaves people with no doubts.
Two and a Half Men’s apologies/makeups always feel fake to me, and that may be because often the person was faking it for their own convenience. How I Met Your Mother does a pretty good job at this, and The Big Bang Theory wraps up it’s storylines in pretty convenient ways sometimes (Sheldon and Penny both get sick, or Mary intervenes for Leonard/Howard/Raj’s mistakes, etc) and sometimes drops the issue altogether, although on occasion a proper makeup is shown. But mga kaibigan doesn’t fix it “on occasion.” mga kaibigan didn’t do a “pretty good job.” mga kaibigan never felt “fake”. It was genuine and sweet, one hundred percent of the time.
When there was a fight on Friends, I always knew it was going to resolve itself and leave me loving the characters more. When there is a fight on The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother, I dread pagbaba reviews/forum posts on how awfully it was written or how terrible a character behaved.
So in short, it’s very simple.
Now that you’ve read this huge artikulo on what stands mga kaibigan apart, I’m going to sum it up with one simple sentence.
Put puso in your sitcom.
If we can believe that these characters care for one another, if we believe that these characters, at least for twenty-two minutos at a time, are real, we are going to keep tuning in, keep laughing with them, and keep rooting for them. With mga kaibigan I rarely, if ever, see comments like “the writers made Emily a bitch,” or “the writers caused Monica to fall in pag-ibig with Chandler.” I see comments that say “Emily is a bitch,” or “Monica fell in pag-ibig with Chandler.” And it’s phrased that way because there was puso within the funny, pag-ibig at the core of each storyline, and the characters were loveable, redeemable, and genuine enough for people to believe, while watching, that they were real people to be loved and entertained by.
In Conclusion
I agree with the quote in the fact that nothing has been or ever will be like Friends. mga kaibigan is and always will be in a class sa pamamagitan ng itself, no matter what the comparison is.
A ipakita is truly special that makes most people cry when they watch the series finale. It’s special when each taon fans hope for a reunion episode. mga kaibigan is a ipakita that was so popular and important that, in a Horrible Bosses artikulo written seven years after the show’s conclusion, there was a sentence that sinabi “It will be strange to see Rachel (not Jen Aniston, Rachel) in the role of such a terrible woman.” It’s special enough that Ellen DeGeneres greets Matt LeBlanc with “how you doin’?” the same number of years later. It’s special enough that the tanong that most wanted answered in a Jen Aniston interview just a few weeks nakaraan was “are you still mga kaibigan with the Friends?”
mga kaibigan was definitely special.
mga kaibigan will always be an exception.
But it doesn’t have to be the only one. It doesn't have to be that far above the rest. mga kaibigan had it’s share of annoying characters, weak episodes, and bad or cheap jokes. Without the pag-ibig and closeness, it is very similar to what is on telebisyon today.
So, sitcom writers, here is my advice. Take what you have, and just add heart. Clearly, that works.
