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.
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