Where's PETA when you need them? Clearly this horse is dead, and yet those lucrepitous brutes at 'Time Warner' continue to flog it with reckless abandon. 'Friends' was great, series 1-5: pure class, 6-7: the sleepwalking years before 8-10 picked up for the last stretch home. 'Joey' on the other hand, was an indefensible, calculated and cynical exercise in money creation; one that expectedly went the way of countless other spin offs before it and axed, though I think 'Roxie' (a dire 'Kate & Allie' sequel) holds the record with four episodes, and lest we forget; that for every 'Cheers'-'Frasier' there's a 'Married With Children'-'Top Of The Heap' the latter, incidentally, also starred Matt Le Blanc, whose character survived to headline an equally short lived spin-off of a spin-off: 'Vinnie & Bobby' (Le Blanc was Vinnie). 'Joey' continues the comedic escapades of struggling N.Y. actor Joey Tribbiani, who's moved to L.A. to pursue his dreams. Matt Le Blanc is Joey Tribbiani, Matt Le Blanc will always be Joey Tribbiani, when our world ends; and ashen embers from an atrous sky rain upon the cindered, skeletal remnants of Earth like confetti at a wedding procession, even then; Matt Le Blanc will still be Joey Tribbiani, and why not? 'Joey' isn't a terrible sitcom (I laughed once or twice) but its premise is so hopelessly contrived & diluted, that even some of its better gags seem forced or simply fall flat. An excellent Drea De Mateo shines as Joey's sister Gina, Paulo Costanzo is his likeable nerd of a nephew Michael, Jennifer Coolidge is on form as Joey's agent Bobbie whilst sometime theatre star Andrea Anders plays neighbour and would be love interest Alex. After the first few episodes, it was only Drea De Mateo's turn as attractive skank or belle laide if you want to verbose about it; Gina Tribbiani and her on screen rapport with our titular protagonist that kept 'Joey' watchable. Drea, whose quite attractive in real life, has no qualms about playing an uncouth, older character and her comic timings quite good for someone whose never done comedy before. Now it seems as if the network was either waiting to play the 'Friends' card or just couldn't convince any of them to make cameos, after all, continuity goes right out the window when Adam Goldberg (who rose to prominence after his legendary run as Chandler's psycho roommate Eddie in 'Friends' Series 2) returns as a completely different character, same goes for Jennifer Coolidge albeit to a lesser extent. Lucy Liu and Kelly Preston guest star, but the wheels have come off by then; for if any kind of 'Friends' spin-off had a chance of making it past a season it'd be 'Joey & Chandler', but alas, Joey alone and armed with only a handful of hit n' miss jokes simply doesn't cut it. Imaginary friend.

Obviously not quite as good as Friends but still a lot of laughs. The character of Joey has smartened up a bit but is still slow on the uptake somewhat. I was also surprised by the amount of special appearences by well known actors there were, but... i feel it was not given the budget it deserved coming off the back of Friends. My only non-petty real problem with it is an episode feels 20 mins long.