I never saw this episode until reruns- I'd never of heard of any of the cast when it was first broadcast so I did not bust a gut making sure I saw it .Looking at it now- it's repeated almost ever other week on the Comedy Channel- it stands up really well and is certainly better than a fair few pilots of now 'classic' comedy shows as well as quite lot of the episodes of the first series of the show proper. The main thread of the show throughout its entire run is introduced in this episode- Ross' love for Rachel- and although the performances of all three of the male principals improved quickly it is remarkable how much the writers nailed their 'characters' from the off- Joey (Matt LeBlanc) the daft, funny Lothario, Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) wisecracking but slightly insecure and Ross (David Schwimmer)is highly intelligent but a total dope at the same time. Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe is only slightly less well defined than the lads from the off but Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) is much more of a blank canvas in this episode- she is the outsider here and arguably her character went on the longest journey in the show's overall run. The one character who seems different to how she turned out is Monica (Courtney Cox). I felt that as the series wore on she became a serious pain-in-the-bum but in this episode she is almost naive and much more amiably vulnerable than she ever was subsequently. And she is gorgeous -the prettiest of the three young women. As I say I missed this first time around so I cannot say if I thought Friends would be the phenomenon and frequently hilarious classic it became- but it looks pretty good 21 years on.
