Joey: la serie

[arturo_gtz]

IGNFF Exclusive: First Look at Joey
A sneak peek at the Friends spinoff!

July 02, 2004 - The history of television is littered with the carcasses of highly anticipated spinoffs from top rated sitcoms. For every success like Frasier, there are three bombs like After M*A*S*H, Flo and The Art of Being Nick. The odds aside, it's a rare thing when a studio decides not to attempt a spinoff, especially when the original series was one of the most successful sitcoms of all time, Friends.


Joey slides into the coveted Thursday night time slot vacated by Friends, ready to help fans of that series who just can't live on 8 hours per day of Friends repeats alone. As set up at the end of Friends, Joey Tribbiani, as played by Matt LeBlanc, has gotten offers to do a couple of television series in Hollywood. Choosing a new cop show for cable over a network series about male nurses, Joey is on top of the world. After meeting up with his sister, Gina (Drea de Matteo, Adriana on HBO's The Sopranos) and her 20-year-old genius son, Michael (Paulo Costanzo, Road Trip), the pilot quickly sets up Joey's living situation in an apartment that, like the one he moved out of in New York, most people wouldn't be able to afford. Like most series set in L.A., there's a pool right outside Joey's door and fake palm trees all over the set. It couldn't look more like a soundstage if it tried.

Joey's life quickly hits the skids as the series he decides to take gets cancelled while the series he passed on becomes a huge hit. His agent, played by Jennifer Coolidge (American Wedding), tries to keep his spirits up but just can't seem to bring herself to be positive. "You're living in a dream world," she tells Joey when he tries to look on the bright side of the situation. "Everyone involved in that show is going to become rich and it'll haunt you for the rest of your life." Even so, she manages to get Joey an audition hosting an entertainment news show, which he blows in a spectacular fashion.

Meanwhile, Joey finds himself between Gina and Michael as Michael begs his Uncle to help him move out from his mother's house. "They're making jokes at school," Michael pleads. "These aren't the cool kids – these are engineers!" Joey relents, thus re-establishing something close to the Joey / Chandler situation from Friends. Michael cooks Italian food from their grandmother's recipes and shows some neat freak tendencies, which should clash with Joey's natural ability to make a mess anywhere he goes in good comedic fashion.

Living next door is a hot neighbor, played Ashley Scott (Birds of Prey). As Joey tells Gina, "She may be the future 'Mrs. Joey Tribbiani,' or at least the future awkward situation." So much for the future – Scott got bumped from the series in early June because the producers wanted to re-work her character. Which means they saw the same thing I did while viewing the pilot – she didn't bring anything to the production and drew attention away from the core characters.

If this pilot proves anything, it proves that the cast of Friends may have been one of the most under-appreciated ensemble casts in television. The combination of those actors playing those characters helped to propel Friends to the level it finally achieved. LeBlanc certainly gets the most from his years as Joey and brings everything he can to the table for this pilot. His supporting cast will need some time to get used to their roles in order for the series to really take off. De Matteo and LeBlanc seem to be able to play off one another as brother and sister but time will tell if she will even be a necessary character to have around, now that Michael has moved in with his Uncle Joey. I could easily see her pushed out as a redundant character once Michael is established as a primary character.

Joey the series has great potential to follow in the footsteps of successful spinoffs like Frasier but in order to do that, the quality of the writing will have to improve. I did find myself laughing during this pilot but not as much as I'd expect to. The door is definitely open for guest appearances from his former Friends cast members, something I'd expect to see at least a couple of times during the first season, one during November sweeps and the other during May sweeps. If NBC doesn't get an itchy trigger finger, it's just possible that Joey could be in our living rooms for years to come.