Well, for some reason, you are compulsively led to watching Friends. In the second episode of which, Chandler says to the crew, as they watch Three’s Company (a show about 20 years older than theirs) something along the lines of “I bet this is the episode with the awkward situation.” See, it’s funny because I watched Friends, 20 some years later, saying “Ooh, I bet this is the episode with the interpersonal drama!” Nothing new under the sun. Not even jokes about old sitcoms on sitcoms.
But you’re also led to think about ER and its nascent years. You think about watching it, find it’s not on streaming and give up, and that’s how you get to watching Friends anyway. Then you see Noah Wyle and George Clooney appear in a relatively early episode of Friends, as doctors, and you say, oh screw this, I’ll pay Amazon the $1.99 to watch the pilot episode of ER, which aired on September 19, 1994. Yep, I saw it. I don’t think technically I was supposed to be up that late but I definitely watched it back then. I had assumed, over the years, that the show would feel cheesier and cornier on a rewatch, especially as it carried into its 15th season (before ending in 2009). Turns out that yes, it has some dopey moments, but it’s a much better show than it really has a right to be.
I ended up paying Amazon more money. I also found that Bellamy Young, who had a notable role as a surgeon on Scrubs in 2004, was on ER as a med student in 2001. I can dig it. But even though I remembered her one ER episode, I didn’t know it was her. It was also interesting to see people from Orange Is The New Black in the early years and to recall that the first time I ever saw Alex Kingston (better known these days as River Song, I’d say) in anything was when she was on ER. The theme song (at the beginning and the end) really put me back in the 1990s in a very weird way. Despite the depressing amount of realism and grit on that show, that music always suggested hope. (Ironic, since they beat out their competitor, Chicago Hope, in both ratings and longevity.)
1994 is also the year of one of my personal favorites, The Critic with Jon Lovitz. It’s official. I’m old. And there’s no easier way to see that than to look at a list of 1994 Television Debuts. Like, thinking, oh crap, that’s when My So-Called Life came on, too?
PS: Turns out that, for a show shot in 1994, Friends really isn’t that bad 22 years later.
Dumpster Jedi 