For someone who watches an average of at least twenty to thirty series a week, it's hard to come up with an actual favorite. I could end up listing a hundred. I could carefully and painfully explain to you in detail why I picked each, you might as well just tune out and watch your own favorite program.
So, I'm only going to go with one. You could say this is the All-Time Favorite. And anyone who knows me well, or has been following this blog for a while, actually already know what it is.
I started getting attached to Friends in 1998, some four of five years after it first aired. I was a new mom, looking for some connection in MY world (because 24/7 mommy duties can drive anyone crazy!). I had the husband rent the series out in VHS, when VCD technology was still peaking, DVD have yet to be mainstream and no one's even thought about BLU-RAY.
Before 1998, I know that it aired on a local channel (ABC 5) and I use to catch it once in a while but didn't really think it was all that. And I used to dislike Chandler Bing.
But after a VHS marathon of five seasons --- and perhaps because I was longing to have that kind of "adult connection" with someone other than a fussy baby and a husband who also had his own thing; and my own set of friends were very busy with their own lives and their own issues --- the FRIENDS became my friends.
Thus, a connection was born. I started to get really invested on this show. When we got internet connection for the very first time, using a slow modem connection, I logged on to every Friends site I could find and devoured information. I downloaded scripts when I can't get enough of watching episodes on VHS. I joined Friends Groups sites. I got books about it. I bought VCDs. The first DVD set I owned was a Friends set. I dreamt of working on the Friends set. I got my Rachel haircut. I longed to move to New York. I wanted to have coffee in Central Perk.
This connection, love and crazy addiction I have for the show? I've even passed this to my own son, that baby I was taking care of while I was getting to know this show back in '98. Ever since Friends ended in 2004, he and I would make it a point to marathon seasons 1-10 at least twice a year, with his father occasionally joining us. It has become a family tradition.
Shows come and go. I've watched enough of series to tell you which ones to avoid and which ones to follow. I've come to love other series as well and I have also fallen out of love with many of them. But Friends is the one that sticks. Because it was "really there for me."
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