Who the Hell is going to watch 'JOEY' on NBC?

[Placebo]

I really don't know why they are even wasting money on the first few episodes, how many people are going to watch it like 5? and then maybe 1 or 2 for the second episode? :shrug:

WHY DO THESE NETWORKS EVEN WASTE THEIR MONEY ON SUCH CRAP ?

[NightTrain]

1. Forgive my ignorance, but what the hell is "Joey?"

Due to space limitations, I recently put my TV set into storage. I don't miss the damned thing at all, but not having it leaves me unable to participate in a thread like this one.

[Placebo]

2. Some spin-off show for the Joey character from 'Friends'

crap is what it will be

[Fenris]

4. NBC is giving the moronic casanova from "Friends" his own show.

Expect cancellation within a few weeks.

[Kipepeo]

3. A lot of people

Unfortunately.

There are too many out-of-it TV addicted dumbasses in our country. (And I'm not excusing myself either! I have my own "guilty" pleasures like Law and Order. :) )

It makes me sick to my stomach when most people I meet have more to say and know more about about American Idol or Paris Hilton's show than they do about Valerie Plame or the 9/11 commission or even the Presidential election in general.

[sundog]

5. The same people who will watch a show like LAX

what kind of stupid shit is THAT :eyes:

[flamingyouth]

6. Why is Drea DeMatteo in it?

That's just such a pathetic step down.:shrug:

[Tripper11]

9. Step down maybe...but she needed a gig after.....

getting wacked on The Soprano's.

[soothsayer]

7. I will!

It will suck, but I'm rooting for it anyway. Same with George Costansa's new show, which will also blow.

[jeff30997]

13. There's a George Costansa's show now.

How original.I really hate spin-offs.

[Dookus]

16. Why?

Some of the best shows on TV have been spin-offs.

[soothsayer]

35. Well, it's not a seinfeld spinoff. He plays tony kornheiser,sportswriter

basically,with two kids. (can you say "Everybody Loves Raymond?")

Just Jason Alexander as the actor, not george as the character.

[Dookus]

8. Why presume it sucks

before it premieres?

It may well suck, but it may not. Who thought "Frasier" would be a good spinoff?

Any show with any premise with any stars can be good - as long as it has good writers.

[UdoKier]

10. Even the ensemble of "Friends"...

...was only able to lure me into watching maybe five times in the ten years it was on.

You've seen one, you've seen'em all - typical inane sitcom, plus it actually used the 70's and 80's gimmick of running those "very special" episodes - and people actually watched!

"Phoebe's gonna sleep with Joey" "Chandler's gonna have Ross's baby" "Monica has a big fight with the albino at the coffee shop, but they make up" "Everybody goes to Reyjavik for Rachel's soon-to-aborted wedding to rich guy who's just not Ross and that's just not right"

Who freaking cares. When I was a twentysomething single, I had more fun tthings to do than watch this show. Now that I'm a thirtysomething married with kids, the concept of a show with a bunch of long-in-the-tooth people who can inexplicably afford great apartments in a bizarrely all-white Manhattan and still live like they're college kids has NO relevance to me whatsoever.

Feh on Friends AND Joey.

[Dookus]

11. It was a very well-written sitcom

which is rare.

It's popularity made it "uncool" to a lot of people, but it was one of the few very long-running shows that was well-written, well-acted and well-directed throughout its run.

Was it important? No, of course not. Neither was any other sitcom in history. But it was good entertainment.

[UdoKier]

It just didn't speak to me.

The humor on "Roseanne" resonates with me because I totally know about raising kids on a shoestring income, and feeling pretty frazzled.

Same with "All in the Family". They are working-class people with a working-class way of speaking.

I have never known people like the ones on "Friends". Their lives seem unbelievably easy and fun. Maybe some people are that carefree in real life, but I'm not familiar with that world.

Not that it didn't make me chuckle, but I get BELLY LAUGHS from All in the Family, and occasionally touched a bit too.

[Dookus]

14. I also loved Roseanne

but I never judged a sitcom by whether it matched my life or not. I think the Mary Tyler Moore show was amazing, while never being a single woman in Minneapolis. All in the Family and Roseanne matched my upbringing better, and I loved them both, but not because I could "relate". Of course Friends was improbable. So are most sitcoms.

M*A*S*H was about as far from my experience as I can imagine (well maybe except for Hogan's Heroes) but it was still a great sitcom.

It's about the jokes, not the premise. Friends had a lot of great jokes.

[Kipepeo]

12. thank you for the laugh!

well-written? I disagree. It was the writing that made me hit the little button the remote every time. The actors themselves (some of them) have done other things I much appreciate...but Friends? Come on.

Of course, whenever they were in need they could fall back on the 'they're-not-gay-but-this-awkward-situation-makes-people-think-they-are!' punchline. How original.

[Dookus]

15. I agree

with you on that point. The "I'm uncomfortable with being gay" thing was one joke they overdid. However, they probably did it once or twice a season. With about 30-50 jokes per episode and 30-some episodes per season, it wasn't a basic premise of the show.

But it was overdone. It's about my only complaint against the show.

I know it's really uncool to defend "Friends" but Jennifer Aniston is a comic genius, Lisa Kudrow is amazingly funny and the others were all better-than-average. And the writing really WAS good.

[UdoKier]

18. Oh, I do think they're a good ensemble.

I've enjoyed all of them in other things.

The thing is that characters as silly, trivial and fake as "Friends" need to be a bit more over the top, parodied and ridiculed for me to enjoy them.

Instead, they chose to run "very special" episodes, where we were supposed to suddenly CARE about these silly, spoiled balls of fluff.

I agree that Aniston and Kudrow are the best actors on the show. Aniston obviously gets her talent from her dad, veteran character actor John Aniston.

I've yet to see Matt LeBlanc impress me in anything, same for Chandler. Monica was okay in the "Scream" flicks. She shows some potential. I hope she can break out of the annoyingly whiny "Monica" persona. But I never expected to see her come this far when I first saw her hop on stage with the Boss.

[Dookus]

19. I'm not sure what

"very special episodes" you're talking about.

They sure did a few in the last season, toward the end. That's understandable.


Other than that, I think they were pretty restrained.

I agree with you about the actors, for the most part. Aniston and Kudrow were great, Perry was good, but nothing special. Courtney Cox, though, grew on me a lot. She could deliver a line.

As for Matt LeBlanc, he was actually pretty funny. When I think of my favorite gags on the show, most of them involve him.

I'm not saying "Joey" will be good. I'm saying it MIGHT be good. If you'd asked me when "Cheers" ended who would succeed with a spinoff, I'd have gone through at least 4 other stars before I got to Kelsey Grammar.

[UdoKier]

20. The one that sticks in my mind...

Is the one where Joy and Chandler have no furniture, so they sit in a canoe on the floor as a duck walks around.

For some reason that in and of itself was supposed to be funny. Maybe to a certain frat-boy sensibility, it was. But I just changed the channel...

[Dookus]

21. actually

that was a few episodes, maybe half a season. I don't recall it ever being billed as a "very special episode".

They had a pet duck and a pet chick. It was good for some laughs.

[ScreamingMeemie]

24. Yaaay! Dookus! We agree on this. I really did enjoy the show.

Jennifer Aniston is truly a great comic. Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc playing off of each other always worked well, and the slightly uncomfortable bookish goofiness of David Schwimmer was always more than watchable. :hi:

[Dookus]

25. Hey Mrs. G!

How's my doggie doing? Are you taking good care of her until she can get here?

[ScreamingMeemie]

26. She is doing amazingly well! She bounced right back after surgery

and is just as peppy as ever. Doesn't like the antibiotics but who can blame her? :loveya:

[Rhiannon12866]

17. They are hoping to attract the huge audience from "Friends"

I used to work with the commercial networks and know that they wouldn't spend the money on this if they didn't hope to cash in. I, also, can't see the appeal, but it is certainly much cheaper to produce than "Friends." Only one star, for one thing.

If you notice the way that network television has gone, there are fewer sitcoms and even fewer hour-long dramas. They are looking to reduce costs. They first went with the proliferation of news shows, "48 Hours," another "60 Minutes," "20/20" and how many days of the week is "Dateline" on?! And now they have moved on to the reality shows. Even cheaper to produce, eliminating actors and writers, but still pulling in the ratings, so they are now all over the place. I am baffled at their appeal, but I am a liberal nutjob, right?:shrug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

23. Heck, if it's not a reality show...I'm willing to give it a shot.

:)

[Rhiannon12866]

27. Me, too. There are nights when that is all that is on

I have no interest. Joey was not my favorite "Friend," but I'd rather see him than people bickering in a house, on an island, on the run, or being drowned in insects. And I have never watched this stuff, only seen promos. I will probably tune in, which shows both how low my, and the networks', standards, have become.:shrug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

22. Me. I am going to stand up and say that I really liked "Friends" and

I really miss it. I am looking forward to "Joey". Matt LeBlanc seems like a decent person. Any man who falls in love with the children of his wife (MrG included) has my respect. I hope this show is a smash. :hi:

[Rhiannon12866]

28. Though he was not my favorite "Friend," I liked him, too

And was glad to see that he did well, after "Vinnie & Bobby," on FOX Network, one of the shows that I had to write about. Remember this one? It didn't last long. I hope that he continues to do well.:-)

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-514/Vinnie__Bobby/

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. I had forgotten about that one! It was a summer airing wasn't it?

Those never seem to do too well.

[Rhiannon12866]

36. Probably. But it also aired on the upstart, "FOX,"

which I always argued to write about, which is the reason that FOX liked me, like my coworkers really argued, since this was extra work for them, to write about other shows.:shrug:

[mac56]

33. I'm with you, Mrs. G.

I liked "Friends". Never felt like it jumped the shark. Always entertaining, rarely cloying, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And Joey was always my favorite. I plan to give the new show a chance.

[terrya]

29. If the show lasts that long, I bet the producers can't wait for sweeps...

when they bring back the whole "Friends" cast for a reunion.

I just can't see "Joey" lasting very long. Joey Tribbani is NOT the most compelling character to build an entire show around, to put it mildly. :-)

[Dookus]

30. But...

was Frasier the "most compelling" character on Cheers? Was "Maude" the most compelling character on "All in the Family"? Was Florida the most compelling character on Maude?


It's not about the character - it's about the writing.

[terrya]

31. True enough, but.

The writing has to be good, sure.

But the character has to stand on its own, as it were. This is strictly a subjective matter. Either you have to like the character and think that he or she is interesting enough to have an entire series built around them, or you don't. And the examples you give...Maude, Florida Evans and Fraser Crane, are either strong, forceful personalities in their own right, or they have eccentricites (Fraser) that they are interesting on their own. And, again this is subjective, but I don't think "Joey" has any of that.

[gasperc]

34. me

hey, I loved Friends and what the fuck is the matter with a guilty pleasure like a TV show that makes you laugh your head off

[rene moon]

37. Me!

I am a huge Friends fan. I like Matt LeBlanc and i hope it works out for him. If you dont like it, well in the immortal words of Flo: Kiss my Grits!

[CO Liberal]

38. Yes, But the "Flo" Spin-Off from "Alice" Tanked

Remember???