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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 4, 2004)
Subscribe to OPAS Today and Get Your Tickets to the World! Get the best seats at the best prices to the OPAS 2004-2005 Main Stage season! THE FOREIGNER Starring Tuna Guys Jaston Williams & Joe Sears September 24 & 25 HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO October 21 FIDDLER ON THE ROOF November 3 & 4 Sponsored by R Wells Fargo |jQj|| YO-YO MA & EMMANUEL AX December 3 GISELLE | St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre February 5 & 6 THE FULL MONTY February 9 & 10 PRAGUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA March 6 MISS SAIGON Sponsored by March 2i & 22 |^sof.)i i Awnrn: 42ND STREET Apr 6 & 7 BROADWAY: The Big Band Years January 19 AIDA | Opera Verdi Europa April 17 TICKETS Call 845-1234 to request a FREE subscription brochure! Logon to www.MSCOPAS.org and subscribe online! All Main Stage events performed in Rudder Auditorium at Texas A&M University. Souki's got a "Make It Happen" list for Summer 1. Buy hat for beach party 2. Jump start math major Message to Souki: While you're home for summer reserve a seat in one of our summer sessions or our three-week May mini-mester. Check out our summer classes @www.college4you.com. Mak* Happen! 4A Tuesday, May 4, 2004 ENTERTAINMENT .THE BATTALION 0' [HE •' “Friends” at the end: Will fans see the likes of it again! or [ontin By Aaron Barnhart KRT CAMPUS million tor but u. “Friends” has had more jump-the-shark moments in its 10-year run than any TV show ever. But they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and “Friends” is proof of that. After roaring back to life time and again, it gets to leave the airwaves this Thursday tin its own terms. Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe and Joey may or may not be “friends to the end,” but they certainly learned how to work together as negotiation partners. Not only did each of them earn $ each of the last 18 episodes of this season they also were able to cancel their own show while it was still going strong and move on to new things. (Malt LeBlanc will star in “Joey” a spin-off comedy for NBC next season.) The sendoff of “Friends” proba bly should have happened a year ago, but NBC executives were still waiting for “the next Friends” to come along, and they bribed the show’s six stars to return for a Final season full of clip reels and reruns. The gamble appears to have paid off. This abbreviated final season of odds-and-ends episodes has, strangely, been one of the better ones. And earlier this year, the “next Friends” finally arrived. Unfortunately for comedy fans, it’s called “The Apprentice.” We had to make the point over and over that this was not a show for a generation. It was a universal show. The demise of the hit sitcom and the onslaught of reality shows are worrisome trends. “Are Sitcoms Dead?” asked Entertainment Weekly. “Is ‘Friends’ the End?” was USA Today’s more apocalyptic headline. Interesting questions, and we’ll get to them in a moment. But first, let’s dis pel the false notion that underlies them that “Friends” was just like all other sitcoms, only higher-rated and longer-lived. Wrong. “Friends” was in a class and a league all its own. It was sitcom serendipity: outstanding actors combined with terrific writing and people at the helm who obviously hail no intention of coasting once “Friends” became a monster mega bit. Through all the ups and downs, journalists waited for a crack in the six actors’ unified front. They're still waiting. Meanwhile. “Friends” just continued to sur pass expectations. Originally branded as a Gen-X comedy, it inspired a multitude of knockoffs. Even NBC tried other ensemble shows with hip young people hanging around drinking coffee. ”We had to make the point over and over that this was not a show for a generation,” said David Crane, the other co-creator of “Friends,” in a recent conference call with reporters. “It was a universal show.” It’s interesting to compare “Friends” will) “Frasier,” the other NBC comedy signing off this spring (May 13). Five years ago, if you were to have bet which show would be treated to a lavish farewell, you’d probably have picked “Frasier.” Spun off from “Cheers” in 1993,it had an immediate impact on urban America, and it was showered with Emmy awards eari\ on, including best comedy series five years mn ning, from 1994 to 1998. But as “Friends” matured, it became a big ger hit and won Emmys, though not as That wasn’t NBC’s marketing prowess at woii Rather, it reflected the growing admiration for a program where people weathered the changes of life while valuing their friend ships above all else - above lovers, above jobs, above pettv annoyances. Or compare “Friends” and "Everybody Loves Raymond."the show that w ill get the “Friends’ treatment next season if itsprinci pals make gcxxl on their threatio quit “Raymond” in 2005. It'si classic comedy that depends heav ily on comic pauses, much as the Norman Lear shows of the did. Laughs can be drawn out for 10 or 20 seconds if need be. By contrast, "Friends" is a thoroughly contemporary show The ystem late le; jibutioi in jlitica idle ib ms lo 41 a the r lc 11 on of iioney — David Crane co-creator of "Friends" Using computers, its editors routinely remove laughter during post-production whenever the studio audience’s live reaction slows down the show’s allegro pacing. “It is such an extraordinarily sophisticated show, and yet they make it look effortless,”says Robert Thompson, the TV expert at Syracuse University. “I would argue that Friends is good if you’re half-asleep.” That probably explains why networks have been try ing to create “the next Friends’’for near ly the entire decade that the show has been on the air. Unlike the idiosyncratic "Seinfeld” or “Frasier.” copying “Friends" doesn’t seem like the hardest thing in the world to do. But it has proved impossible. Many people have commented that it feels like the passing of an era. because networks are no longer churning out hit comedies. 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