10 TV Shows That Were Doomed From The Start
7. Joey
After the tenth and final season of Friends, one of the most successful TV sitcoms of all time, fans and critics alike were curious as to what the central cast would get up to now that the vehicle that had made them super-rich household names was gone. For the most part, they went exactly as they were expected to: Matthew Perry attempted to go straight (of which more in a moment) and then went straight back to sitcoms, never quite finding a niche that fit; Lisa Kudrow and Courtney Cox drifted into various lower-echelon TV comedy dramas; David Schwimmer tried his hand at directing and the theatre; Jennifer Aniston moved into playing variations of Rachel Green in feature films.
And Matt LeBlanc? He spun straight off into Joey, a sitcom about his character in Friends moving to LA to pursue his acting career. It seemed fitting for a man that many anticipated didnt have much range beyond Joey Tribbiani, that he'd continue to play Joey Tribbiani. Somewhat predictably, Joey didn't bring the massive Friends audience with it, and the show was cancelled after only two seasons.
The problem was that Joey was a two note character that fitted snugly into a sitcom ensemble: he didn't have the weight to carry his own show. In order to broaden the character's range, he was re-written to be a typical male sitcom lead: fairly smart but emotionally immature, insecure and in need of love, thereby fitting into the majority of the situations that would bring the comedy in shows like this.
These were characteristics that no real Friends fan wanted to see as a part of Joey Tribbiani, the goodhearted but dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers womaniser. Frankly, it's astonishing the show made it to two seasons.