Anyone else sometimes get annoyed by little mistakes in the show. Sometimes ones that make it clear that the writers did
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Friends
RussianBeauty — 10 years ago(February 13, 2016 08:19 AM)
Anyone else sometimes get annoyed by little mistakes in the show. Sometimes ones that make it clear that the writers didn't research facts very well.
One that comes to my mind is when David and his scientist friend are planning to go to Minsk. The friend snobbily tells her that Minsk is in Russia, which Phoebe replies that she knows where Minsk is.
Minsk is in Belarus not Russia. They could be forgiven for mistaking it for Russia when it was still the USSR. However Belarus declared independence in 1991. A good 3 years before friends started.
Anyone else notice little things like this that annoyed them? -
JDoe18 — 10 years ago(February 13, 2016 01:39 PM)
All shows do this though. Friends isnt any different. Usually the inconsistencies just very with the first few seasons when they are establishing things. It does get annoying when they forget things from the first season.
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blakgard — 10 years ago(February 14, 2016 04:53 AM)
Your example does, because I'm a Russophile, so I'm a bit persnickety about these things like nitpicking Trek trivia.
But it's only a comedy, not a documentary. To the general (ignorant) US public, a Belarus is probably some type of bell. -
louiseculmer — 10 years ago(February 16, 2016 10:45 PM)
the one i've always found irritating is where they suddenly decided to have a flashback with Monica being attrqcted to Chandler when she was still fat,and him being attracted to rachel, despite the fact that it is made clear in the first episode that rachel has never met Chandler before.
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tigerlily_86 — 10 years ago(February 19, 2016 02:14 PM)
Carrying on with your idea that the writers don't research facts very well, I find it funny that one of the biggest lines about Ross and Rachel, "he's her lobster", is based on the "fact" that lobsters fall in love and mate for life but lobsters don't actually do that.
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ppllkk — 10 years ago(February 19, 2016 02:59 PM)
RussianBeauty
wrote:
Yeah that was bad research considering Phoebe made such a fuss about the lobster idea.
But it was
Phoebe
who said it. I thought it was in line with her character to say something ludicrously wrong. I never took her seriously, although I did eventually look it up.
Lobsters are serial monogamists. The female has to shed her shell to reproduce and she shacks up with the male until she regrows her shell. Perhaps that is the origin of the term "lobster shack." (At least in the eastern part of the United States, small establishments that serve lobsters are sometimes called "lobster shacks.") I know it's not really funny, but I couldn't resist.
Lobsters, of course, are boiled alive before being eaten. Perhaps Phoebe was thinking of something like that. -
xMartyMcFlyx — 10 years ago(March 14, 2016 04:00 AM)
You know what bugs me? When they're all supposedly watching tv but then we switch to a different camera angle and can see that the tv isn't even on. I think the one where Ursela did porn is a good example, they show the group watching the tv then switch to Joey sitting at the table refusing to watch the video. If you look behind him you can see the tv isn't on. It's really fast but if you pay attention you will catch it.
Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads. -
iluvpalmtrees — 10 years ago(March 14, 2016 07:30 AM)
The birthday thing really annoys me as well, especially since there was an entire episode dedicated to when all of them turned 30. I know that it's not like they say
when
everyone's b-day's are, but I thought Ross said something about his b-day being in Spring or something but in the first few seasons it was in Oct. -
PaulWard27 — 10 years ago(March 14, 2016 08:27 AM)
I think I already said it when the thread first got posted, while the birthday inconsistency is frustrating, it doesn't really impact the plots or storytelling.
Hence why I am more bothered by the inconsistencies surrounding the history of the characters interactions. Mostly Chandler and Rachel, as we all know by now the pilot heavily implies this was the first meeting. Yet flashback episodes show them meeting at a Thanksgiving dinner years before the pilot and later they actually make out at a party. The only real disclaimers/explanations could be they were drunk at the party and forgot or they were both so shallow and self absorbed they forgot who each other were by the time the pilot came around.
Back to the birthday thing though, while it doesn't really bother me much for the reasons stated, I do feel it would have been fairly simple for the creators and writers to have a character profile that had a date of birth for each of the 6 lead characters, for reference purposes. I suppose they may have deliberately kept dates a bit vague so they could drop an event/party/thing into a storyline at any given time to suit the writing. -
MarblesLove — 9 years ago(July 03, 2016 08:29 AM)
Mine have already been mentioned. For me it's mostly the inconsistency with their birthdays/ages and with Rachel and Chandler's first meeting.
Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained. The end. -
PaulWard27 — 9 years ago(July 03, 2016 01:52 PM)
Ages don't really make a difference to the stories or the humour, so I don't really get too bogged down by the mistakes.
As I said already though, it seems to me like something that could easily be avoided, surely someone would have created profiles with dates of birth so that ages and birthdays would always remain consistent.
