6. Its Like Friends, But Without The Slushy Morals
Its Always Sunny is not your typical sitcom. It bypasses the toe-curling clichés and saccharine sweet relationships of Friends and delivers pure, unadulterated and completely immoral comedy. At first glance Its Always Sunny has a similar premise to Friends: a group of city-slicking thirtysomethings hanging out at a watering-hole and getting themselves into various exploits. Its Always Sunny, like Friends, features siblings, an intellectually challenged character (Joey in Friends and Charlie in Its Always Sunny) and a Gunther-esque character (Rickety Cricket). However, five minutes into the first episode and it is obvious that the similarities end there. Its Always Sunny isnt about good, clean fun and light mischief followed by a moral summing up of the episode. There is no need for an explanation of what has been learned from this weeks escapades - the gang dont learn from their mistakes, they just make more extreme ones. Also absent is the tedious stringing out of a will-they-wont-they relationship. The gang are incapable of forming lasting relationships with anyone outside of the group and the relationships within the group are based on lying, cheating and blackmail rather than soppy romance and flirtation. Imagine the cast of Friends as a gang of sociopathic, egocentric, manipulative drunks and youre just about there.