--- title: Friends Television Premiere 1994 Anniversary: 20 Years Later description: TIME's critic gave 'Friends' a big thumbs down in its first season. Here's why he's standing by that review canonical: https://time.com/3403782/friends-1994/ author: Richard Zoglin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-22T11:00:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:18:12.125Z article:section: History og:title: The One With the Bad Review og:description: TIME's critic stands by his 1995 pronouncement that 'Friends' is "inane and gimmicky" og:url: https://time.com/3403782/friends-1994/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2255461c919ab17c/6986a453810bbb21afc93897/friends.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Cast Of Friends 1999 2000 Season From L R: David Schwimmer Jennifer Aniston Courteney Cox Ar og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The One With the Bad Review twitter:description: TIME's critic stands by his 1995 pronouncement that 'Friends' is "inane and gimmicky" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2255461c919ab17c/6986a453810bbb21afc93897/friends.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The One With the Bad Review by [Richard Zoglin](https://time.com/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Sep 22, 2014 11:00 AM UTC  The Cast Of "Friends" from the 1999-2000 Season. From L-R: David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox Arquette, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow And Matt Leblanc. The Cast Of "Friends" from the 1999-2000 Season. From L-R: David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox Arquette, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow And Matt Leblanc.Getty Images by [Richard Zoglin](https://time.com/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Sep 22, 2014 11:00 AM UTC _“Life on_ Seinfeld _may be laid back, but its characters always seem to have someplace to go. In_ Friends _the crowd is always around to share their latest personal woes or offer a shoulder to cry on. But who would want advice from these dysfunctional morons, with their obsessive pop-culture references?” — Richard Zoglin’s review of the first season of_ Friends_, which premiered 20 years ago on Sept. 22, 1994_ Little did I know when I poked fun at _Friends_ back in 1995 that I was dumping on what would become a TV classic. But I was a dissenter then, and I’m still a dissenter. The show never rose above its artificial, formulaic roots — characters assembled straight from the sitcom-writer’s handbook, jokes delivered with mechanical predictability at the network-mandated rate of three per page. It became a little easier to watch over the years, thanks to sheer familiarity and as the actors and writers dove more deeply into the characters. And I admit the show looks better in retrospect: compared with _The Big Bang Theory_ (or _Two Broke Girls_), _Friends_ almost qualifies as cinema-verite. **_Read that 1995 review, free of charge, here in TIME’s archives:_** [Friends and Layabouts](http://time.com/3403781/friends-and-layabouts/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3403782/friends-1994/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3403782/friends-1994/"},"headline":"The One With the Bad Review","datePublished":"2014-09-22T11:00:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:18:12.125Z","description":"TIME's critic gave 'Friends' a big thumbs down in its first season. 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