I'm certainly not the only one who watched the series finale of Friends yesterday. And I'm not the first to post on Mindsay about it, either.

But here's my take: Not as bad as I thought it would be.

Did I expect a shocking, surprising ending? No. And there wasn't really anything. Aside from the twins, which wasn't really so much of a big deal. It's not like we're going to see what will
happen with the upbringing of the kids or anything... And Rachel and Ross reconciling at the end? Predictable.

The destruction of the foosball table was a nice closure moment. And I'm glad that Gunther finally got his closure as well.

But considering all of the hype leading up to the finale? Not worth it... We didn't need them to do a 2-hour special on Dateline NBC. Access Hollywood didn't have to follow the road to the final
friends for an entire month. And NBC certainly didn't have to turn every promo for "the countdown to the final friends" into a big soap opera.

I used to like the show a lot. And last night I did have my laugh out loud moments. But I wasn't compelled to watch it once the characters started being extremely repetitive. The writing for
Chandler was funny as hell when he was a cantankerous, single guy who never got any play. But didn't he become a tad overdeveloped as the husband who catered to Monica's every whim?

If you watch the first few seasons of Friends, when they still weren't sure if the show would sink or swim, it seemed a lot like Seinfeld -- lots of friends just hanging out, having hit-or-miss
social lives, and ranking on each other. No other real premise aside from living life in Manhattan. The quintisential show about nothing.

But then they had to write in guest stars. And, I have to admit, there definitely were moments. Tom Selleck and Jon Favreau as Monica's beaus were incredible. Brad Pitt as the guy who used to
have a crush on Rachel? Beautifully done. But Bruce Willis wasn't so memorable. Christina Applegate as Rachel's sister was unipressive as I found her just rehashing Kelly Bundy from Married With
Children. (Anybody remember when Reese Whitherspoon played Jill, Rachel's youngest sister? She was credible, at least...) Evenn Julia Roberts wasn't so great on the show. And remember when
Billy Crystal and Robin Williams guest starred that week? No? Don't blame you. It was about as memorable as the movie they were plugging
at the time... And my wife does have a good point -- they don't whore out the stars as much as a show like "Will and Grace" does. But they were still doing it a bit too often for my
taste.

I guess I've been let down by series finales in the past. I didn;t watch the end of M*A*S*H in 1982 because I didn't finish my homework before it started. But I heard that was amazing. I saw the
finale to "Newhart" when it was re-aired -- that was classic. But then I decided to throw a party to watch the series finale for "Cheers." We had a lot of people over, we watched the show the
preceded it from 8-9 (the Seinfeld where the "show about nothing" aired on NBC -- because they needed something to replace "Cheers.") Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) came back for a final fling, and
it ended with Sam Malone (Ted Danson) reflecting and looking at a picture of Coach before closing the bar for yet another night. It was quite anti-climatic.

And Seinfeld's ending? Many were disappointed there as well. What I found the most intriguing there was TV-LAND's programming during that finale: just a sign on the door saying "We're watching
Seinfeld -- be back at 10."

I have to hand it to TV-LAND again this year: yesterday during the Friends finale, it was just video of the TV-LAND staff watching TV with a big bowl of popcorn, laughing every so often at the
TV. Very cute. But they sandwiched the hour with sitcoms from the 80s which featured members of the Friends cast before they were stars. (Remember "Ferris Bueller" the TV show? Hey Charlie Schlatter
-- where have you been?!?) That was a clever way to get people excited.

The real winners of last night: The Rembrandts. The ones who sang the theme song. Because every single infotainment program was profiling them, and they had enough time to plug their upcoming
studio album.

Will "Joey" last? Will it become another "Frasier" or "Rhoda?" Or will it be the next "AfterM*A*S*H?" Only time will tell...