When you have Friends who needs enemies? Last night
marked the end of the longest run of inanity since the last time
Ted Koppel practiced listening to himself speak in front of his
shaving mirror.
Even Enemy Central was suckered into watching the festive
signoff. Not having seen the show before we weren’t certain what to
expect. One thing we didn’t expect at all is that it would be more
moronic than Sesame Street. The Friends crew
managed to project all the intelligence of six pre-school dropouts
who never resumed their schooling. Our sincere apologies go out to
Bert and Ernie and the two dodos in Dumb and Dumber. Next
to Friends you’re somewhere up there with Einstein and
Hillary.
Evidently the Friends sextet spent its latter years
swapping partners within the collective. Two of them had just spent
a dreamy night together. It was so good that neither could express
his or her feelings for the other. Instead in sappy detail each
described to the rest what it was they’d done. In this day and age
it’s amazing they didn’t share digital photos and videos. No one
owned a leash? Anyway, the gal then prepared to fly off to Paris,
where she’d heard through the grapevine that a lot more behavior of
this sort goes on. Her male dolt lover boy is then compelled to
chase after her to prevent her flying off. No one knows why, since
even if they hooked up again they wouldn’t have an apartment to go
back to.
The other subplot centered on another of the show’s couples who
somehow managed to get married. It’s never explained who filled out
their marriage license for them. But clearly they seemed clueless
about what to do once married. More likely they reached the
critical decision resolved last night the same way that modern
marrieds do when they decide to build an add-on to their split
level or maybe a sun-porch: they decided to have themselves a baby.
Not theirs, really, but a young girl’s. So there we all were in the
hospital room with these three and the girl’s obstetrician
(humiliatingly played by the great Arthur Rubinstein’s son,
according to our spy-cam) while in no time at all out pops the
consumer item baby — who, as an unexpected bonus, is presently
followed by a twin. Wow, two for the price of one!
The actual mother? She’s sent away with a parting gift and a
promise by the larcenous parents that they’ll call her. If they
were going to do it that way, why not have a stork do the
delivering? At least then we’d still be in the realm of the
recognizably human.
Too late, you say? True, Friends week had to contend
with Katie Couric and all the other hypers at NBC exploiting the
demise of the network’s longest-running remedial sitcom. Katie
interviewed all the stars, one by one by one. Not having watched
the segments with the females, we can’t say if she gave them equal
time. But with the men all that 50-ish Katie, going on 15, could
say is that he or some other hunk was “hot.” Sex on the brain? That
assumes the presence of a cranium.
Furthermore, it’s no accident that Tipper’s best friend Al
decided this week to announced his great television project and his
desire to produce programming for young people. As always, Al was
thinking about Bill and how to keep him entertained. These aren’t
easy days for Bill, crashing as he must be to complete his
autobiographical masterpiece, “War and Piece,” by the June 30
deadline, after which it becomes the property of the Iraqi
Governing Council.
Mercifully, next to no one had the wit to exploit the demise of
Friends for partisan political purposes. So it’s time to
meet Mr. Next to No One, one Thomas Friedman, the most impolitic
diplomatic columnist imaginable. He favored war in Iraq yet blames
others for its ongoing difficulties. Quicker than you could say
John Kerry he was calling for Donald Rumsfeld’s firing. He’s
worried that everyone in the world now hates us. Even young
Japanese he’s talked to. In his New York Times column
yesterday he said it’s no surprise so many Americans were obsessed
with the Friends finale. “They’re the only friends we
have, and even they’re leaving.” You’ve got to admit that’s a
better line than any written for the show itself. Just for that
Friedman fails to qualify. We’re thus back where we started. With
Friends like those, we know who’s the Enemy.
