Something About Consistency

In my life I have two worlds: one in reality and one in TVland. Now, I realize reality is not always consistent, but I really do expect TVland to be. Joey Tribbiani is a resident of TVland. He used to live in New York with his gang of Friends but, as everyone grew older, he decided to move to Hollywood to better pursue his acting career. In reality, Matt Leblanc played a character on the sitcom "Friends." When Friends ran it's course, Matt moved his character to "Joey." Given that "Joey" is a spin off of "Friends", I expect some level of consistency between the two series. When I watched the first episode of Joey I knew something was wrong. Joey has a manager named Bobbie, played by Jennifer Coolidge. The problem with this is that Jennifer Coolidge played another character in Joey's life while he was still in New York. She played Amanda Buffamonteezi, Pheobe and Monica's annoying friend with the fake British accent. Given that her part in "Friends" was very small and confined to one episode I let it slide. For some reason or another, the people at "Joey" decided yet again to screw with TVland. A few years ago while still in New York, Joey got a role on Day's of Our Lives. At the time, Joey and Chandler were roommates. Joey feels that, with his new found stardom, he needs his own place. With Joey gone, Chandler needs to find a new roommate. He decides on Eddie Menuek , a psychotic character played by Adam Goldberg. Unlike the small role Jennifer Coolidge played on Friends, Adam had a fairly big role. He played Eddie in episode 217-219. On Thursday's episode of "Joey" Adam Goldberg appears yet again in Joey's life, not as Eddie but as Jimmy, Michael's dad. Seriously, there should be rules about this. You can't have an actor playing 2 separate characters in a sitcom. Yes, I know that "Friends" and "Joey" are two separate sitcoms, but, because "Joey" is a spinoff, the world he experienced in the first series should continue in the second. Take "Happy Day's" and "Joanie Loves Chachi" for example, the latter being a spin off. Let's pretend that when Joanie and Chachi move into their apartment they have a landlord played by Henry Winkler. That would have been stupid! Not all shows are inconsistent like "Joey." In TVland, Ray Barone has a friend named Doug Hefernan. In reality, Ray Romano played Ray on "Everybody Loves Raymond" while Kevin James plays Doug on "The King of Queens." Doug occasionally played one of Ray's friends on Ray's show. On a recent episode of "The King of Queens" Doug hangs out with Ray. In the episode Ray mentions his wife, Deborah, his kids and his parents. The conversation is consistent with what the viewers know about Ray's life in TVland. The people at NBC weren't always this inconsistent. In "Mad About You" there is a character named Ursula played by Lisa Kudrow. In this series she plays a waitress. In "Friends." Lisa plays Pheobe Buffay as well as her twin sister, Ursula. In episode 1-15 of "Friends," Jamie Buckman, played by Hunt, comes into Central Perk for a coffee. When she sees Phoebe she immediately recognizes her as Ursula:

JAMIE: What is this place?
FRAN: Look, you're cold, I have to pee, and there's a cup of coffee on the window. How bad could it be?
JAMIE: I think we have an answer.
FRAN: What's she doing here?
JAMIE: This could be God's way of telling us to eat at home.
FRAN: Think she got fired at Riff's?
JAMIE: No, no, no. We were there last night. She kept bringing swordfish. Are you gonna go--
FRAN: I'm gonna wait till after we order. It's her, right.
JAMIE: It looks like her. Um, excuse me.
PHOEBE: Yeah?
JAMIE: Hi, it's us.
PHOEBE: Right, and it's me.
JAMIE: So, so you're here too?
PHOEBE: Much as you are.
JAMIE: Your turn.
FRAN: We know what we want.
PHOEBE: Oh, that's good.
JAMIE: All we want is two cafe lattes.
FRAN: And some biscotti cookies.
PHOEBE: Good choice.
JAMIE: Definitely her.
FRAN: Yeah.

There you have it: consistency. If only the people at "Friends"had continued with it, TVland would be back to normal.