The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate

Rachel Green makes a grand entrance in her first appearance within the first episode of Friends, the little sitcom with mostly unknowns (in the ten years prior to the launch of Friends, Courtney Cox worked in both film and television, most notably as Lauren Miller, Alex P. Keaton's girlfriend on NBC's Family Ties and Lisa Kudrow developed Phoebe's twin sister Ursula, on NBC's Mad About You. In this clip, Jennifer Aniston seamlessly inhabits the character of Rachel, who starts the series as a self-absorbed and spoiled young woman, whose naÏveté serves to overcome these negative attributes and helps reveal a sensitive, compassionate, and loyal friend.

Who knew in 1994 when Friends first appeared on TV screens across the country the impact it would have, first in America, and then around the world? From the start it ranked within the top ten TV shows for every season and reached the number one spot in its eighth season. Over 55 million American viewers tuned in for its final episode in 2004. The show is still so popular that it's been reported that it continues to generate $1 billion dollars a year, which means the six main cast members earn at least $20 million each per year just from their contractual residual payments. Putting its financial performance aside the show continues to entertain millions with its magical mix of characters that were perfectly defined by its creators, David Crane and Marta Kauffman. Then a minor miracle occurred when those characters were perfectly embodied by the ensemble cast of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer. Seriously, what were the odds?

This first episode, The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate had a reasonably strong rating, with Nielsen ranking it the fifteenth-most-watched television show of the week with over 21 million viewers. While other sitcoms had done very well with an ensemble cast such as Seinfeld and Cheers, Friends perfected it by selecting three of the six lead characters each episode and creating three separate storylines with the main storyline capping the show in the final moments. Importantly, each of the storylines always stayed true to the individual character arcs that tied every show, every season, and the whole series together, culminating in the final season's final episode. While it's unlikely this was planned completely at the beginning, my belief is that the creators and the writers recognized what they created was a winning formula early, and refined and harmonized it with the requirement for laugh-out-loud humor that defines a sitcom and our human need for stories that resonate long after the final episode fades.

In this first episode the camera glides through Central Perk's window to find four of the six friends are relaxing in their second favorite hangout (Monica's never empty apartment appears to be their favorite hangout!). Monica speaks first, admitting to the gang that she has a date with someone she met at her work. We ask ourselves why does she sound so defensive? Her friends answer that question with three quick comments: Joey ("C'mon! You're going out with a guy. There's got to be something wrong with him!"), Chandler, ("So does he have a hump? A hump and a hairpiece?"), and Phoebe ("Wait, does he eat chalk?"). Apparently Monica is prone to dating losers, despite her appearing confident and attractive as we enter into the lives of the six friends. This is setup for the first of the episode's three storylines.

The next storyline introduced is Ross's. He joins the group looking miserable and barely able to say "Hi." We discover he's newly divorced, his ex-wife just moved her stuff out, and she is now with her new partner (his ex, Carol, and her new partner Susan, are introduced in the next episode). This is my own opinion, but David Schwimmer overplays his part a bit in this pilot episode but quickly adjusts and becomes a lot more sympathetic as the season proceeds. His recently dissolved marriage isn't the heart of this second storyline — rather, it's the reveal of Ross' unrequited high school crush on Rachel and how this crush is rekindled when Rachel joins the gang.

Rachel's unexpected arrival at Central Perk is the third storyline, and it drives not just this episode, but much of the first season. She's left her fiancé Barry at the altar (the ceremony was to take place in her home turf of Long Island) and makes her entrance soaked by the rain and still in her wedding dress and veil, carrying her wilting flowers. To her, Manhattan is a place she goes to shop and meet her girlfriends for lunch and a couple of Bellinis, but now it's a place for her to seek refuge after running away from the life that she expected herself to live. It's the third and the most important storyline of the episode, because it is the story arc that ends the season as Rachel realizes that not only has she discovered a new life, with real life challenges and real friends that support her individual growth, but she's also discovered that she can unexpectedly fall in love with a real person, not someone that her Long Island peers expected her to marry.