This is one of your typical sit com layouts, some of the characters living together, one social area that they all meet up at, in this case it is Central Perk coffee shop. By looking at this picture you can get an idea about the groups inside the group of friends for example Joey (left) is your typical New Yorker, Ross and Rachel (2nd and 3rd in from the left) are the on and off couple, Chandler and Monica (2nd and 3rd from the right) are the married couple and Phoebe (right) is your typical dumb blonde. When looking at modern day sitcoms you can tell that they have taken some influence off Friends. For example How I met your Mother, straight away you can see there is a large group of friends, a mixture of male and female, roughly aged 30, which is very similar to the characters in Friends. The characters in How I met your mother all regularly meet in a pub called MacLaren's Pub, where as the characters on Friends regularly meet in Central Perk Coffee shop. Other things in the programme that match are things such as flashbacks, Friends often uses flashbacks in their episodes. This is normally to show how a specific storyline started off, for example when Ross brings Chandler home for thanksgiving dinner and he first introduces Chandler to Monica.
(Above, How I Met Your Mother, MacLarens Pub)
(Below, Friends, Central Perk)
You can see just by looking at the pictures that the layout of these two sitcoms are very similar. The characters all based around a table, in a surrounding where other characters can easily be incorporated into the storyline and somewhere for them all to discuss there feelings about different situations in the narrative structure to each other to give you an idea about how they are feeling.
This sitcom uses six main characters that are all best friends. The friends live in apartments in the same apartment block and most episodes include multiple storeys about groups of characters. This is everything you can expect from a sitcom, love, arguments and comedy and so much more.
This programme is not very diverse in the way it has cast its characters. I am not saying there's anyone who could play the parts better than any of these actors, just that there are no other ethnicities really involved in the programme. This may be because they all ready had all the characters planned out in their head before they auditioned for the actors. The only real change from an all american New Yorker is Joey the Half Italian, but this was not uncommon in New York at this time. The programme does show however use a lot of different ethnicities throughout all the series', for example Charlie, who starts off just working with Ross but then goes on to have relationships with both Ross and Joey, she is only involved in series 9 and ten.
The show includes six characters who are all six stereotypes, the 'dumb blonde', who is Phoebe Buffay, A 30 year old masseuse that is a vegetarian, animal lover. She is also considered the weird one of the group. The one the used to be fat, which is Monica Geller, who is also the clean freak. The funny one, Chandler Bing, who's dry humour us is not always understood by his friend. Rachel Green the fashionable one who has a job at Ralph Lauren and is probably seen as the most desirable one of the group. Ross Geller, the clever one, Ross is a palaeontologist and this is used a lot in across all of the series' to make fun of him. And finally Joey Tribiani, The typical New Yorker. An out of work actor who spends his time watching TV and eating Pizza and trying to hook up with pretty much any woman he can find.
Overall this group of people are your typical mid 20's people. Don't really know what to do with themselves, Don't have incredibly stable jobs, most of them unlucky in trying to find love. And
You can see the mise en scene of this programme show when you look at the characters apartments. For example Joey and Chandlers apartment resemble your typical males apartment, not overly clean, a football table, and normally pizza lying around somewhere. Where as when you look at Monica and Rachel's apartment it is very clean and tidy and everything is in its place which you can tell is Monica's doing as it matches perfectly with her personality. When you look at Ross' apartment you can tell what type of person he is just by looking around his apartment, for example he has a lot more art and books than the others and overall his apartment has a lot more sophisticated look about it, and the same for Phoebes apartment, her apartment really reflects her personality, a lot of mellow colours, art hanging on the wall and some weird things dotted about the room, for example a mermaid table.
The codes and conventions of this sitcom and many other sitcoms are very similar. A lot of them have limited characters and sets, for example in Friends they are mainly either in the coffee shop of in one of the characters apartment. They also have a catchy theme tune that will really catch your ears and draw you into it, with friends it probably has one of the most successful theme tunes of all time. A lot of sitcoms use canned laughter, which is where there is an audience laughter dubbed over the top of the show to seem as if it is a real studio audience watching the show live, this also is a very popular thing in many TV programmes. There is some catchphrases used in Friends, not all characters have one but there is the signature Joey Tribiani 'How you doin' which is used most commonly to start off conversations with any female that catches his eye. Then there is Janice's 'OH MY GOD', she is not in very many episodes but this is one of the most recognisable catchphrases of the programme.
Friends uses many different methods of keeping the narrative structure alive. One of these methods is by using secrets, and then somehow someone finds out, this creates an alternate story within the bigger story. This is very recognisable during the episodes where the Monica and Chandler are trying to keep their love a secret from their other friends. Another way of keeping the stories alive is by introducing a part of the story that nobody had ever seen before that could change the way everyone looks at the story, for example when they all sit down and watch the video tape of Ross going to ask Rachel to take her to prom when her date does not show up. This is something from a long time before they get together in in the series and this re-sparks Rachel's love for Ross.
In Friends, the characters are very relatable. The Male characters are all very relatable in many different ways, Joey for example is the one who is good with woman and really, that's about it. He is constantly dodging woman who has had experience with in the past and most of the time has funny little reasons why he dose not want to make contact with them again, one reason would be the very famous girl who stole food of his plate during a date. Although this is only a very small humorous part in the storyline, this is something that people can relate to and will remember easily. The Female characters are all very relatable to the female viewers as they are all going through the same problems as the viewers there age. They are all asking each other advice about boys and you can see in which ways they deal with situations, this is very relatable for girls as they probably deal with similar situations in the same ways as the characters.
The girls in the programme show a lot more emotion than the boys, well show their emotion more often anyway, this is good because it makes you feel how the character is feeling and really gets you emotionally involved with the programme. There are a lot of situations in the episodes that have really strong emotion behind them, a lot of these are based around Ross and Rachel, an example of one of these is when Ross comes back to the coffee shop to see Rachel, this is probably one of the most famous kisses throughout all of the Friends episodes.
Most sitcoms use small social groups, be it family, for example The Royle Family, School Friends, for example The Inbetweeners, people who live together, like Friends, and there are many more. In these social groups there a always very different personalities, this gives the programme the contrasts it needs to work well and stay unpredictable.
There are often one liners in sitcoms, in Friends in particular we would naturally look to Chandler to provide the awkward one liners that no other characters choose to understand or acknowledge.
Throughout the series' you very quickly begin to figure out the personalities of the characters and you begin to be able to know how they will react to different things. You can see that there is never much conflict within the characters but when there is it is normally over something really funny and daft or over something really serious and something very emotionally driven. But in the end all the characters look out for each other and are fast to help when they can.
This picture is of Rachel and Monica helping chandler get over a break up, where he has just seen his ex in a shop for the first time and does not know how to deal with it, this is very relatable for the female viewers.
Throughout the series' you can see the characters mature and the narrative structure change with them.
Although the characters change a lot throughout the series' there is always still the immature side of them that is very easily brought back out.
A lot of sitcoms choose to have their stories start and finish in the same episode, this is called a closed episode. Quite a lot of the friends episodes are open episodes which means that the story inside the episode is not concluded within that episode and carries on to the next episode. Some Friends episodes include flashbacks which makes Friends a non linear programme. A lot of the episodes have sub narrative inside the larger narrative structure that keep the episodes full, giving you lots to think about and making them exciting and fun to watch.
