Very soon you're going to feel remarkably old, because Friends turns 20 this year. Ben is all grown up, the Central Perk six are well into middle age, and children who will never have watched Friends when it first aired are almost at high school age. And yet, you're still watching Friends - probably with a greater frequency now than you ever did back then. It's repeated multiple times a day, and probably will be in perpetuity, as channel heads recognise that they can plug four or five hours a day with old content that won't see their audience share dip, and it doesn't matter how many times you see the best episodes - The One In London, The Last One, The One Where Ross Is Fine - you will happily trade jokes with the TV, mouthing words, chuckling contentedly and feeling the warm, comforting glow of familiarity. But you're kidding yourself if you think Friends is the perfect show. It's good - in fact it's great - but it is flawed. We've already established that the show is full of mistakes, and that there are some things you have to ignore in order to truly love it, but more than that there are actually some rather compelling reasons why you should actually hate it. Some of the characters are broken, others are genuinely difficult to like at all and the writing goes from brilliant to bad to utterly deranged in the space of single episodes. And while you will likely be lynched for the suggestion, there are some points you can easily raise to prove why others should probably hate the show as well.
