I'll be there for you. CNN is claiming that Friends is the most overrated comedy ever. Comedies are rarely to everyone's taste -- senses of humour are as individual as fingerprints. But to claim that Friends is not one of the all-time great sitcoms is ludicrous. Along with Seinfeld, Friends rejuveninated television comedy. Although NBC may not have been justified in calling it the best comedy of all time, a claim it was making in promotions for the final season of the show (and that it withdrew after complaints from other NBC's shows such as Frasier), it is certainly one of the best.

CNN goes on to claim that contemporaries of Friends such as Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond are "current classics" that Friends "can not hold a candle to". Despite the perennial approbation of the Emmys, Frasier's pseudo-intellectualising (making references to foreign films and merlot do not qualify it as highbrow) and Raymond's repetitiveness (it should be retitled Nobody Dislikes Raymond since it only seems to win by being so unoffensive compared to edgier and thus potentially alienating comedies like Curb Your Enthusiasm that it is the easy choice) do not qualify them as comedy greats.

Friends captured a generation (X) and a time (the 90s), and its long story arcs, comparable to the well-planned out season-long developments of, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, make it stand out as one of the best comedies of all time. Sure, people will still watch Frasier and Raymond in reruns for decades, but Friends is a cut above them and most over television series.