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Forum namePass The Popcorn
Topic subjectthis was a fine line the writers walked.
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=643573&mesg_id=643682
643682, this was a fine line the writers walked.
Posted by Joe Corn Mo, Sun Mar-10-13 01:26 AM
>...speaking of. Was there a particular reason why Monica
>turned into a bitch after season 5?


at a certain point, each of the characters ran the risk
of becoming caricatures. and to a certain extent, they did...


joey became dumber,
ross became more of a weirdo,
monica became more of shrill...


but what's interesting to me is that the writers
managed to make it so that you never really started to dislike
any of the friends.



they let people fall into their archetypes
without letting them become one-dimensional characters...





like when pheobe carried her brother's twins.
that could have been a story arc that seemed implausible,
but it was played in a way that showed it as an act of selflessness,
which made eccentric pheobe seem sweet.

and they helped pheobe become a real person by having her settle down
with a perfectly normal guy.






the writers walked a fine line because they had to
make sure that all of the characters stayed funny... so they
played to their stock traits for laughs. which means that
traits like monica's competitiveness became more pronounced.

but they humanized her by hinting at the fact that
her OCD traits were a reaction to the fact that she was a fat kid
that couldn't control her impulse to eat that was always in the
shadow of her brother ross.




sometimes, the writers made a few missteps.
monica was sometimes a bit of a shrew.
but ultimately, in the end... you always liked all of the characters
to the very end.

you were happy to see them succeed, and even when the show started
to leave realism behind in order to play to the audience for laughs, you still felt the characters were honest and real.


the show never jumped the shark.
you still liked monica and chandler as a couple.

i know what you are saying,
but it never bothered me.