I’ll be there for you*

I always seem to get addicted to TV shows after they go off the air.

Saved By the Bell was in syndication when my sister and I watched it, from about 1995 to 1999 (it ran from 1989-1993). We saw every single episode at least two or three times – plus the College Years episodes and the Wedding in Las Vegas TV movie. We loved those characters and all their drama. I still consider myself a fan.

Similarly, my more recent, well-documented addiction to Gilmore Girls began a year after the show went off the air (though this was more about my being stubborn than anything). I’ve watched all seven seasons’ worth, but I still came to it after the fact. And The House of Eliott aired in another country when I was in grade school – so of course I didn’t know it existed then – but again, it follows the trend. I’m always a latecomer to shows.

My most recent TV addiction is to a show that I wasn’t allowed to watch when it began airing, in 1994. (I was 11, to be fair.) I didn’t even like it for a while when I started watching it – I thought the characters were too flip and that there were too many awkward jokes. (I stand by that last assertion, actually.) However, over the last few years, I’ve become quite a fan. And now, Jeremiah and I are working our way through all 10 seasons of Friends. And loving it.

We’ve been borrowing one season at a time from my parents, and laughing (sometimes hooting) our way through the show’s early history. I’ve mostly seen episodes in the middle seasons (3 through 7), so there were a lot of early ones I hadn’t seen, and thus a lot of stuff I didn’t know. We’ve recently reached more familiar ground for me, and the cast is really starting to hit its stride as an ensemble. (Last week, we watched my favourite episode EVER – “The One Where No One’s Ready,” early in season 3 – and we laughed so much we had to watch it again this week.)

Unusually for me, I love this show even though I don’t identify with one particular character. None of the girls – or even the guys – are that much like me, though I sympathize with some of Monica’s neuroses and, like Rachel, once worked at a coffee house. However, they are completely hilarious together; their catchphrases still fill the brains and mouths of my generation; and they provide a real look at what young adult life is like, in terms of uncertainty and crazy relationships and starting your career and relying on your friends like they’re your family.

We had more of a Friends-style hangout in college, when Val, Dani, Julie and Kisha lived at House 9 Abilene and we were all still single, than we do now. I never did have the big-city lifestyle, the strings of one-night stands (thank goodness) or the embarrassing moments on the scale that the characters do. However, I still have friends I can call when “no one told me life was gonna be this way.” And I can still pop in a DVD and enjoy (and shake my head at) the exploits of Phoebe, Rachel, Monica, Ross, Joey and Chandler. And pretend I’m hanging out with them at Central Perk.

*title taken from the Friends theme song